


FIFTH SESSION /
SECOND SITTING		:	NORMAL	:	22, 25 AND 26 MAY 1998
								



								

	VOLUME 4 /	1998







SPINE:	VOLUME 4 1998
















HANS\COV498

	DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS OF
	KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE

	FIFTH SESSION
	SECOND SITTING - EIGHTH SITTING DAY
	FRIDAY, 22 MAY 1998

THE HOUSE MET AT 9:06 IN THE LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER, PIETERMARITZBURG.  THE DEPUTY SPEAKER TOOK THE CHAIR AND READ THE PRAYER.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  

2.	OBITUARIES AND OTHER CEREMONIAL MATTERS

3.	ADMINISTRATION OF OATHS OR AFFIRMATION

4.	ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE SPEAKER

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  At this point in time, I do not have any announcements to make, except to indicate that it was very nearly necessary to adjourn this House, because it was clear when we came in that there was no quorum.  I am just bringing that to the attention of the Whips and the members to note that we nearly had to adjourn the House.  If we had had to do so I would have adjourned for an hour.  That would have meant that we would have had to continue beyond 1 o'clock.

That is the only announcement I wish to make, and I hope that in the future it will not affect us.

5.	ANNOUNCEMENTS AND/OR REPORT BY THE PREMIER

Mr Premier.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  Well, first I must endorse your words fully, and say that I fully support the Whips in taking action to make sure that such episodes will not recur.  This House's dignity deserves of all of us to behave in a manner that befits our membership of this House.

Mr Speaker, the painful thing is that the taxi violence is continuing.  I would like to express my condolences and those of my family and of all the members of this hon House to the families who lost people in the shooting in Durban.  Also to the families of those who died or were injured in a shooting at Gingindhlovu, of a taxi that was travelling from Durban to ~Ulundi~.  I do hope that we are going to make it very clear to the people of this Province that this cannot continue.  Thank you very much.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you very much, Mr Premier.  

6.	TABLING OF REPORTS AND/OR PAPERS

There are no reports or papers to table?  

7.	NOTICES OF BILLS OR MOTIONS 

It is a record day, there are no motions.  [LAUGHTER]  

8.	ORDERS OF THE DAY:

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Before we do that, I recognise the hon Minister of Agriculture.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Mr Speaker, I would like to crave your indulgence, sir, and go back to item 6 on the Order Paper.  I have pleasure, with your permission, in tabling a report on behalf of my colleague Minister Miller for the Department of Finance and Auxiliary Services.  This is the Annual Report for the 1997/1998 financial year.  Thank you.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  The report is tabled.

8.1	DEBATE ON THE MOTION INTRODUCED BY MR S J GCABASHE:

	This House noting that:

	1.	1998 marks the centenary of the birth of the stalwart of the liberation struggle, Chief Albert Luthuli;

	2.	Albert Luthuli was the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Africa in recognition of his heroic role and leadership in uniting our people, and his tireless and peaceful struggle for liberation; and

		Further noting the successful celebration of the Luthuli Centenary as highlighted by the multiparty co-operation when the Freedom of the town of KwaDukuza was conferred on him posthumously.

		Therefore resolve to commit ourselves:

	1.	to uphold the spirit of unity of all the people of this Province and the new patriotism in South Africa;  and

	2.	to commit ourselves to the eradication of political intolerance; the promotion of a human rights culture in the Province; and the creation of lasting peace, so that 1998 also becomes THE YEAR OF PEACE IN KWAZULU-NATAL, as a fitting tribute to the memory of this great son of Africa.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I have a list of speakers here.  I will request Mr Gcabashe to introduce the motion and he has 60 minutes to do so.  It is eight minutes.  [LAUGHTER]  Eight minutes, Mr Gcabashe.  I withdraw the 60 minutes.  You have eight minutes.

MR S J GCABASHE:  Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, sir.  I rise to present a motion today not only honouring one of the greatest sons and heroes of Africa, but feeling deep down in my heart that this message of spreading unity is just the medicine that we presently need in our country.

Chief Albert Luthuli was a man who walked many miles as a religious leader, traditional leader, small farmer, teacher and politician.  He touched the lives of all our peace loving people in this country.  Each step he took remains as a reminder that we have to consider.

The ANC and the IFP need to act on Chief Luthuli's call for unity.  Let me remind my colleagues on the other side of the House, especially the IFP, of three important moments where we were able to put aside our differences and come together in remembrance of our great leaders.

Firstly, the funeral of mama Luthuli showed that through death and pain we were able to be united.  After all, many brothers have turned against each other, often leading to deaths in our Province.  Surely, we must now put those deaths behind us because the history will always remain.  Let us unite and put a seal on the bonds created by our forefathers.

The Ohlange celebrations were attended by not only the leaders of the IFP and the ANC, but cultural, spiritual, community leaders, business people and the community at large were reminded that all of us have a common path to travel together.  That was on the day when there was a commemoration for John Dube.

The launch of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, soon after the beginning of the 20th Century provided the framework for the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and racism, and which kept the struggling people of our country and our Province in particular united for the majority of this century.  

Let us unite and face the next millennium together.

I make this call deep from my heart because the country, the international community and our people in particular are saying that this is the only chance that has been offered to us by them and by ourselves and by God.  If we do not use this chance that is at our disposal effectively, to unite our people, to put our differences behind us, there are slim chances that we will be able to do so in future.

The celebration and commemorations just two weeks ago at KwaDukuza brought the ANC and the IFP and all the peace loving people together in the spirit of Chief Albert Luthuli.  United around the symbol of KwaDukuza, leaders of the two major political parties in South Africa today, that is the IFP and the ANC, spoke in the presence of His Majesty the King about the need to build our future on the actions of our leader, the very same Chief Albert Luthuli.

Let us unite and truly bring peace, democracy and development to our Province.  I know that there have been many things that have led these parties to be separated.  At one stage it was very difficult even to talk to one another, but I think that if we are serious about the future generations it would be better for us to bury the hatred and the differences that exist between these two parties.  It will also help, especially in the process of nation building and in the process of reconciliation.  It will also help our children to make sure that this country is a better country where they can live and properly share in the wealth of this country.

This call is not only directed towards the IFP.  I am very disappointed that my colleague Baba Mkhwanazi is not in the House today, because what I wanted to say towards the end, Mr Speaker, is that today I am making a call which I would like to term buyekhaya.  To all those leaders and members who were once members of the ANC, the time has come for them to come back home so that we are able to build and work towards eradicating the poverty, and the problems that are facing our country.

I know that Baba Ntombela will agree with me when I make this call, and I know that there are leaders like Dr Buthelezi, like

TRANSLATION:  Mr Mtetwa here, I do not see Mr V V Mvelase.  There is Mr Khoza.  There are plenty of them.  In truth, we cannot continue with this moreover without speaking to Mr Premier that yes, in fact there are things that caused our parting.  But most of those things which caused us to part, it is clear now that they are about to end.  In fact, we need you.  You need us.  We need each other.  Therefore, let us put aside everything else that was an obstacle or a disturbance.  With that we do not mean that we should forget the history of where we come from.  But the truth is that we will not reach the year 2000, still separated, and saying we will lead this country forward.

It is now very clear that everybody else who unite, unite only because they do not want to see us as black people succeed, and the government that can be led by these people.  Our leaders in both organisations, they have now shown that they are leaders who can lead this country for a long time to come.  They managed to place a firm base of leaders below them.  Here we have people like Mr Premier.  Also you are here.  Here is Mr Mthiyane, he comes from the rank and he is here today, he is a leader.  We hope that he does not want to go back there and be a rank manager.  He must continue as a leader so that it becomes clear where one is going.

In that way we are saying all our people should assist us.  This is not an easy task, more especially, Mr Ntombela and Amakosi whom I greatly respect.  What makes us happy is that when we take an example from what was done by Chief Luthuli as a traditional leader, he became a leader who was able to live with the people he led, guiding them in a proper manner, and in the difficulties that they were encountering, he was able to work with them.  We ask that this should be an example to other traditional leaders, that they should lead us, even if it is difficult to sit down and work respecting each other.  If they start, as it is traditionally, as leaders to show respect for their people whom they lead, people will show respect, multiplied ten-fold over that.

Therefore, what is important these days is that many of our people - here I want the National Party and the DP to understand - if one talks about farmers, this is not referring only to white farmers.  Chief Luthuli was one of the farmers in the area of Groutville.  There are many others, Mr Khoza and others who are here, are farmers who had been deprived of opportunities, who farmed in those areas that were inadequate for them.  Therefore, if we talk of farmers, we are not just talking about white farmers in terms of skin colour.  We want to see even our farmers progressing, reaching that level and continue with that foundation that Chief Luthuli and other leaders lay, that our people develop and not be small businesses, but take the place and role that befits them, and be recognised in the country and outside, that they can make a difference.

We do not want to be parasites or lean on anybody who tomorrow will say this country is too much for him, he is going to Australia and we remain with the problem.  We want people who do not go to Australia, who do not go to England, who do not go anywhere, who are here to stay, who will be able to properly lead this country forward.

So today, when we talk about leaders and farmers, we must look at how many of our black farmers have also died, dying in incidents of violence and under the circumstances we faced under the ~Apartheid~ Government.  We are not saying that the complaints of white farmers are not important, but we are saying they should really bring themselves closer and be part of the structure that is now being built.  When we say, let us all unite here in South Africa and work together, let them be seen transferring their skills, giving them to our people, so that we can develop and go forward.

I think that if we can do that, Mr Mfayela can definitely be very happy and so can Mr Dingila, because today, when we talk about Tongaat-Hulett over there, they contribute and you can hear what is being said about that enormous property where we have no say.

So when we say we should speak in one voice, we abandon all these political attacks on each other.  Now we are supposed to clear our minds and look at the lives that have been lost on both sides and ask ourselves, what is really the task facing us in order to lead this country?  It will not be led by others for us, but we need to lead it ourselves in a proper way.

I trust that Mrs Ngcobo will help me in passing my message to Poqo and my other brothers, that we are saying no, they should also return home, everybody must return home.  Here, I want to make it clear that I am not talking about a merger.  I am talking about returning home to work together, because they cannot merge into one organisation, but they have to work together.  T/E

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I ask the hon member to wind up.

MR S J GCABASHE:. [Thank you, Speaker]. 

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Miss Xulu.

MS M XULU: (Whip): 
TRANSLATION:  Hon Speaker, I would ask the hon Speaker to respect me by saying Miss Xulu, I am not Mrs Xulu, I did not marry into the Xulu family, but I was born into the Xulu family.  T/E

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: 
TRANSLATION:  Let me correct the hon member.  I correctly said Miss Xulu, because even here it is written, Miss Xulu.  But if you heard as if I was saying Mrs, I would like to apologise to the hon member, but I thought I had put it correctly.  T/E

MISS M XULU: 

TRANSLATION:  Mr Speaker, thank you, I apologise for myself.  Maybe it is because as an old person, my hearing sometimes misses things.  Mr Speaker and your House, first of all, let me ask this House that if we want peace, if we want to reconcile and want everything that you are talking about, we should first talk about peace in this House.  Sometimes we do things in jest and in a playful manner, but sometimes we over-do it.

I would like to tell the House that Mrs Millin has her own home.  She is a wife at her home, she is a member of the IFP.  Therefore, to over-do this playfulness is unacceptable to us in the IFP.  Let us say her family was up in the gallery and what they are doing is seen, to be shaking their heads, pulling faces, doing everything ugly that can be done, what would her family say?  This is the first thing that I am presenting to this House, saying that we in the IFP want it to stop.  Mrs Millin is an hon member, she is a member of our party and we need everyone to respect her as they respect themselves.

Hon Speaker, in this motion that was raised from across, we in the IFP admire ~Inkosi~ Luthuli.  We praise him for his peaceful contribution in fighting for the freedom of black people.  We praise him for his struggle.  We in the IFP are saddened by the way he departed from this world.  When he died it was said that he was run over by a train in an area where it is known he walked every day, and it is known that when the train passes by, it makes a noise and a person can hear it.  Therefore we say to this national hero, rest in peace.  Thank you, Speaker, and for the commemoration and freedom given by the Council of KwaDukuza to respect this, our hero.

But Mr Speaker, there are questions that arise from the IFP about the entire programme.  If it was truly a programme about peace, or it was a programme designed to bring the leader of the IFP and place him here, so that what happened here could happen.  If the ANC leaders were present, some saw it and others did not.  What saddens us, Mr Speaker, on the day that ~Inkosi~ Buthelezi spoke at KwaDukuza, IFP members were not happy.  When the ~Inkosi~ of the Buthelezis was speaking, it was the time of the arrival of the State President, there was a lot of noise and there had to be a lot of noise as the people were excited by the arrival of the President.  But on the other hand, we are asking ourselves, why was he not listened to before that noise started?  Secondly, what we hear, and it does not make us happy about that day, there are young people who started swearing at him and throwing things.  That I got from people who were very unhappy in the Women's Brigade from that area.

I am saying, we should voice this, that although it happened, as people who are committed to peace, we tolerated it, we are still tolerating it, but we call on the responsibility on the ANC members that when they plan programmes, they should look at the treatment of the IFP leader if they truly want peace.  We are asking ourselves, was this programme planned for peace, or the ~Inkosi~ of the Luthulis was being used to fulfil other purposes? Are they truly respectful of this leader who is a hero to all of us, if these things happen to a person, he was in his heart fond of, and to mistreat a person through whom we know the ~Inkosi~ of the Luthulis.

We need peace.  We also need co-operation.  We ask our brothers from across that they should speak of real peace.  Let us talk of real reconciliation.  Mr Speaker, I have some fears about this motion presented in this House, is it a motion for peace, or is there something that will happen in the IFP, and then there will be a national out-cry that the IFP has done this?  I say this, Mr Speaker, because every time when we say we are reconciling with the ANC behind closed doors, the following day one sees that ~Inkatha~ members are expressing slogans that we in the ~Inkatha~ do not even know.  We need peace.  We need to co-operate in real peace.

Yesterday we were behind closed doors across there with our leaders, but what surprised us is that the following day, in one of the papers, they had Mr Zuma as a towering figure.  He was so big on the paper that they almost used the entire page with his picture.  They were saying he is a peace-maker.  This is painful to us, the IFP, that Mr Zuma can make peace alone without co-operation from us.  Where is one of us published as a peace-maker?  Are the newspapers spreading the fires of peace?  I am not fighting with them, they are doing their job.

The freedom stated by the Constitution is that a person will do what he likes, but we are talking about a country experiencing violence, a country experiencing an absence of peace, which I think the newspapers, the ministers of religion, teachers and others, should work with us in shaping this child, so that it can be right and be able to walk.  One ring cannot make a noise on its own, there has to be a second one - co-operation.  The hon Zuma cannot make peace alone without co-operating with hon members of the IFP.

Today, hon Speaker, this motion that was raised by my brother, I used to say he is my child, but today, Ngidi, I am saying my brother, because he spoke sense and intelligently, he did not speak like a child.  T/E

AN HON MEMBER. [when he says, let us cross over].

MISS M XULU: 

TRANSLATION:  No, I am talking about the motion, sir.  I am not talking about crossing over.  The motion, I am saying which I support is for peace.  But, I ask, that this peace they are talking about, should not be the kind which creates a situation where it is said that the IFP has said this, when we have not said it.  That will not build peace if you surround me behind closed doors and while I am listening and say okay, let us go out of the House and speak as one, and then I hear that you are no longer working together, you have singled out certain things, that are no longer what we discussed behind closed doors.

My request is that when we say let us build peace in this country, let us build reconciliation in this country, not to return to the ANC.  If we return to the ANC, let us do so as an independent party, who will remain independent.  In my opinion, we should remain independent until the end of time.  While we are talking about the same things of correcting our country.  Thank you.  T/E

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The hon member's time is up.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:. I now call upon hon member E S Mchunu for eight minutes.

MR E S MCHUNU:  Mr Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute to this very important motion.

Basically what I want to address is the impact of the violence on the lives of the majority of the people in this Province, the impact of the past 15 years.  Not only on the majority of the people of this Province, but the impact on other categories of this Province.  Before I do this, I want to state very clearly that the call for peace, unity and nation building is a call that should be unconditional.  It is something that we should accept unconditionally.

TRANSLATION:  Mr Speaker, we will not be able to put limitations when we are talking about this matter.  We have to accept it, work on it, until such time that there is complete peace and complete reconciliation, and not saying, or relying on who does what.  T/E

I am saying this because my colleague, the hon Miss Xulu is talking about the media, particularly quoting or referring to  Zuma has been declared a peacemaker by the newspaper.  To say that, the ANC does not own the media.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR E S MCHUNU:  And to say that that newspaper could have picked up anybody, that newspaper could have picked on the hon Maria Xulu and could have said she is a peacemaker.

One issue that I want to refer to is an issue on which violence has impacted.  It is something that we all know.  The number of homes that were destroyed, and the number of people whose lives were destroyed, more than 12 000 families were disbursed all over the Province as a result of the violence that has taken place over the past few years.

One thing that we should note here is that it meant that children of these families were deprived of schooling, they lost closeness with their families and their fathers and mothers.  In the process many other people lost their lives, the heads of their families and so on.

We were quite happy when the National Government decided to  contribute R100 million which would be used towards the  rebuilding and reconstructing of the lives of these people.

TRANSLATION:  I do not want to say that here there is a person who complained a lot about that, in a way that caused us to decide to use the money the way we did. But I see it as a mistake if the leaders of this Province, particularly those of the IFP and the ANC, if they have not tried to embrace each other and share ideas about how the people who still stay in churches, who stay in the open veld, who stay in tents, how they are going to be assisted so that their lives may return to normal.

Secondly, what I want to discuss, is this very issue of leadership, between the ANC and the IFP.  It is not necessary to have heightened emotions when you talk about this issue, such that every time something inconsequential happens and we then take it as if everything has gone wrong, and that it means there is an organisation which is not determined, or is not genuine about peace.

What the hon is talking about regarding Dr Buthelezi at KwaDukuza and the arrival of the State President.  I do not think that it should be taken as a question on whether or not the ANC is determined about peace, because, the arrival of the President at that function was in his own hands.  There was no-one who could sit down or plan that the President should not arrive at a particular time, but he should arrive at that time.  If any youth maybe said something, there is no ANC leader who could have called a gathering of the youth and told them, that if the President of ~Inkatha~ speaks, you should say this or that.

Thirdly, what I want to speak about is that there is a challenge for church leaders.  Leaders of the church have a huge task and a lot of expectation that they should contribute and assist in the reconciliation and nation-building.  But I know that most of the time they contribute in this way.  However, there are times when it seems as though they forget.  When there is a perception that there is peace, they too pull back.  And when there are other high profile incidents, they re-appear.  But they are supposed to always continue with this matter, continuing with it, without taking a break.  T/E

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One minute more.  The hon member has exactly one minute.

MR E S MCHUNU: 

TRANSLATION:  Lastly, what I want to talk about is what I know very well that leaders of ~Inkatha~ are complaining a lot about, that is the issue of the TRC.  Now I want to mention just one point, that we who went to the hearings at Richards Bay, we think that there is a lot that contributed to it, to those whose people died.  I am not talking about us, who went there to listen, and us who were watching on TV and reading papers.  I am talking about people who were there, who were handicapped, who had lost their families in that violence.  They had no idea when and how it took place.  That contributed a lot in that it reinforced them, it revived them as people to get an opportunity to know what happened and when the violence that landed them in wheel chairs took place.  Therefore we have to look at it from that angle.  Thank you.  T/E

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Time is up for the hon member.  I now call upon Mr Burrows who has five minutes.

MR R M BURROWS:  Mr Speaker, the Democratic Party has no problem in supporting this motion.  It has no problem in supporting the words of the motion.  It does, however, have some problems with some of the words being used by the members of the ANC to support the motion, which is somewhat different.

We have in the Democratic Party, historically going back to the days of the Progressive Party, great honour for Albert John Luthuli.  We have respect for the position that he held within South Africa and for the honours which were heaped upon him during his lifetime.  For many of us his seminal book, "Let my people go", represented a psychological shift to those of us who were students in the 1960s and read that book and learnt much from it.

The leadership that he represented is now only being fully recognised and should have been recognised in his lifetime.  Let me also say to the hon the proposer, the hon Mr Gcabashe, that we too recognise amongst the farmers of South Africa, the Luthulis, the other small farmers, black, white, Indian, coloured, whatever their race might be.  Those are the farmers that we should be talking about.

AN HON MEMBER:  Not Wessel Nel.

MR R M BURROWS:  Yes, Wessel Nel as well.  Do not say that, because he is part and what you are doing, and this is the warning that I will then go on to say, is when you try and paint us into a corner you are in fact turning the message.  You are turning the message.  You come with the words, "Let us have a spirit of unity", and it is in there, and then you say, the hon Mr Gcabashe, "Let us go back to the ANC".  Well, let me echo it.  Will those people who were members of the Progressive Party, and the PFP, and the DP come back to the DP?  Mrs Cronje, Mr Tarr, Mr Ainslie, Mr Jeffery, Mr Hamilton and all the others.  Come back to the DP.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

MR R M BURROWS:  All is forgiven.  That is nonsense.  That is nonsense.  Let us recognise the political differences that exist between us all.  I want to ask Mr Gcabashe, why does he only single out the IFP and the PAC for his message?  Why not all of us?  The interesting thing, and this is what we do not hear in this House, this is an article on consolidation and public opinion in South Africa published in January of this year:

		In 1997, overwhelming majorities agreed that they were proud to be called South African, (94%), that being South African was an important part of how they saw themselves (91%).

And listen, quote:

		People should realise that we are South Africans and stop thinking of themselves in ethnic terms agreed to by 82%.

Do you agree with that?  Let us stop talking about white and black, political parties because they have got black members and you have got white members.  Let us for heaven sake stop this utter nonsense.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR R M BURROWS:  The spirit of unity is not uniformity, and today I will tell you in a poll in 1994 we received more black votes as a percentage than you received white votes, and do not deny it.  It is a fact.  So stop talking about those, just recognise the votes as all.  Let us recognise that when you talk about new patriotism it is not an ANC patriotism, it is a South African patriotism.  Do not try and spell out for every single article of civil society how they should think and how they should behave.  We are going to be different, and that is the element of political intolerance.  You have got to accept that we are different from you, you are different from us, and we can live together peacefully in that.  That is the message that the hon Mr Mchunu was giving.  Let us recognise that that is correct.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One more minute.  The hon member has one minute more.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Delport is a patriot.

MR R M BURROWS:  Sorry, Delport is a patriot as much as you are.  You, sir, are a patriot.  Let us recognise, because this is the kind of nonsense the hon Dr Sutcliffe will say, transformation equals democracy.  It does not.  Transformation and democracy are two different things and you can disagree with the one, and agree with the other.

Let us finally say a human rights culture grants me and everybody else, including Mr Delport, the freedom of speech and the freedom of association.

AN HON MEMBER:  And Rina Venter.

MR R M BURROWS:  And Rina Venter, and Walter Felgate, so do not try.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR R M BURROWS:  So let us talk, sir, let us talk about the dissatisfaction that people are feeling, let us head towards a unity of purpose, a unity of opportunity and a unity of spirit, but not a uniformity of politics.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Mr Burrows.  I now call upon Mr I C Meer.  You have eight minutes, sir.

MR I C MEER:  Mr Speaker, this is an emotional occasion for me, and I do not want the House to show the type of emotion we have just had.

When the history of South Africa is written, and I ask particularly the hon Premier to take steps to see that a more accurate history of this country is written, I would like to see the first chapter of that book headed, "The Three Great Unifiers".  That is the heritage of each and every person present here, if we understand the democratic role of this particular Parliament.  I would say King Shaka, the unifier of people of the same language into a great nation.  John Dube, the unifier of all black Africans, no matter what language they spoke and finally, my own hero that I lived and worked with, Chief Albert John Luthuli, who unified every South African, no matter the colour of the person, no matter the language that person spoke as democratic South Africa.  He gave us the vision of what this Parliament is.

Let me say at the outset, I welcome honest differences of opinion.  My motivation, political basis came from my understanding of the Holy Quran, which says that honest difference of opinion is a mercy.  We must bear in mind that today we have seven political parties in this Parliament, and this resolution expects of us to treat it with the piety and the sacredness which it deserves.

I am honoured, sir, perhaps I am the only one in this Parliament who had the honour and privilege to work together with Chief Albert John Luthuli.  I want to thank in fact the National Party members present here.  That party made it possible for me to serve two long periods of time in the Johannesburg Prison, the Fort and the Durban Central Prison where I had the honour to see the greatness of this man with whom I lived as a guest of the Government of the National Party.

Today is the day for us to remember that when Chief Luthuli was elected as the leader of the African National Congress in this Province, I was present at that function.  I had a lot of respect for Mr A W Champion, who came from the same area as I came from.  The first African in this Province to have been sent into exile.  He was sent to Kingsley.  He, as the chairman in 1951, said, "All those for Champion on this side, and all those for Luthuli on the other side".  The first person to walk to that side of Luthuli from the delegates was my colleague Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi.  I pay tribute to him on this occasion, that he was party to this great unity that was formed under Chief Albert Luthuli in this Province.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR I C MEER:  Let us also recall that when Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi came to us as a youth, we all worked together.  Dr Frank Mdlalose was an organiser of the ANC Youth League.  Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was a founder member of the African National Congress Youth League, and he came to discuss it with us as colleagues.

AN HON MEMBER:  He is my colleague?

MR I C MEER:  Chief Buthelezi had either to become a lawyer and accept articles of clerkship under Rolly Arenstein or go and lead the Buthelezi tribe from which a call had come.  Unanimously, those of us who were there, including Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo and many others, we said, "No, you go and lead the Buthelezi tribe".  He went there, not on his own, but at the request of the united front of the youth of that period.  He carried out a function which was his responsibility at that time to give South Africa this new leadership that was emerging under Chief Albert John Luthuli.

What I want to now say is we must analyse carefully that "honest difference of opinion is a mercy".  It would be a very sad day if all us thought alike.  God did not want us to all think alike.  God perhaps wanted Adam also to differ from him and make him his vice-genitor on earth.  He sent him down to be of the most important species created by Him.  He was not punished.  He was uplifted to say "go and rule this earth".

The conditions under which ~Inkatha~ was formed still remain, because the ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party did not come from the air.  It did not come from Chief Buthelezi as an individual.  It came from the collective leadership of those who believed in democracy in South Africa.  We now say that the time has arrived to assess, again objectively, whether the conditions which were responsible for that formation still exists.  I say they do not.

Our biggest differences came with sanctions and on violence.  Those do not now operate, and therefore I say that time in terms of this resolution has come for a clear thinking without party political basis, but objective understanding of history.  I speak as the President of the Liberation History Foundation, where I will continue to say that my brother Mangosuthu Buthelezi played a vital role, and I would go further and tell him, "Brother, time has come for you to say that the conditions under which we differed, sanction issues, violence issues, do not operate any more.  Let us get back to the spirit of Luthuli which united us then and today can unite us again, and tomorrow we can live in greater harmony".

One would say that South Africa needs the spirit of Luthuli.  I want to proceed from there to the PAC.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One more minute.

MR I C MEER:  I speak of A B Ngcobo.  We served imprisonment in 1960 together in Durban.  We had differences of opinion but we understood each other better.  I was very proud to have A B as my colleague and friend all his life.  I want to say this, A B admired Luthuli as much as anybody else in the Prison of Durban, and the reason for the existence of that political party, the PAC has also ended.

What about the National Party?  50 years ago they came into power, and we must deal with history.  Sometimes it is very bitter.  In 1960 I was privileged to be with Luthuli in the Prison of Durban.  When the world recognised the quality of Albert John Luthuli and gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nationalists did not recognise that.  He was detained as a prisoner in the Durban Central Prison when the world declared him to be deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for the whole of Africa.

AN HON MEMBER:  It was a disgrace.

MR I C MEER:  It was a disgrace, agreed.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Time.

MR I C MEER:  That was the position in which the Nationalist treated him.  They have now said that they have changed.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Time is up for the hon member.

MR I C MEER:  And everyone who now says they are changed, the Democratic Party did not exist in the days of Luthuli, we welcome them, back into the spirit of Luthuli, because in 1998 we want that spirit to become a reality.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The time is up for the hon member.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Can I just make this request to some of our senior citizens.  When the Speaker says time is up can the senior citizens please respect that.  [LAUGHTER]  I now call upon Mr Waugh.  You have seven minutes.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  At the outset we would like to associate ourselves with what the Premier said about lives lost in the taxi violence yesterday.  It so happens that one of the people who lost their life is a relative of one of our colleagues, Mr Cliff Matthee.  We associate ourselves with what the Premier had said.

Mr Speaker, it is a great honour for me to participate in this debate.  It forced someone like me to actually go and see who and what Chief Albert Luthuli was.  I must admit he was a great man.  When I say a great man, I mean that.  Many speakers have said a lot about him.  What he had done and what he had achieved. We support that.

I would like to quote a paragraph on Chief Albert Luthuli which I got on the Internet.

	He was a true African Nationalist and an unflinching patriot.  Although he grew up under tribal conditions and surroundings, he was uncompromising against racialism, tribalism and all forms of racial and sectional exclusiveness.  He believed in and fought for full political, economical and social opportunities for the oppressed people of South Africa regardless of colour, creed, nationality or rational origin.

When I read that, Mr Speaker, something came to my mind, and that was something that had happened to me.  On the first occasion I entered this chamber in ~Ulundi~, the Speaker welcomed me as a new member.  Just after I had been welcomed, Mr Speaker, a colleague on my right hand said: "Just another white face".

We do not want to be seen as just another white face.  That is not in the spirit of unity for all the people in this Province, and that is not in the spirit of the patriotism in South Africa of which we talk about in this motion.  Do not see us as just another white face.  Rather see us as colleagues who would like to work and assist in improving the lives of all the people in this Province.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  INTERJECTION.

MR J N C WAUGH:  We in the National Party believe in the new patriotism.  We are of the opinion that the new patriotism will not mean anything if proper content is not given to it.  We believe that new patriotism must be based on a new social contract with the people of South Africa and, Mr Speaker, this social contract should consist of three elements.

Firstly, a growing economy resulting in job creation and a higher standard of living.  Secondly, Good Governance resulting in effective management of key areas such as crime, education and public administration.  Thirdly, a proper balance between the interest of the majority and the interest of minorities.

Mr Speaker, these elements I have mentioned should be underpinned by real strong structures.  We must all create structures that will make investments in our country a real option.  Incentives should be given to those investing.  Our labour laws must motivate employment and we should create economic growth.

As far as crime is concerned, we previously requested that a Commission be appointed to look into all the allegations and counter-allegations that have been made.  These allegations are not in the spirit of the new patriotism.  That is why we called for a Commission that can look into that matter.  Let us clear the decks on these allegations.

We also welcome the code of conduct the ANC and IFP are considering at the moment.  However, all of us should be part of that.  That should not only be a code of conduct between two role-players in this chamber.  We must all be part of that process, and we must all participate in that process.

We need something similar to the old Peace Accord, which most of you know.

AN HON MEMBER:  Like the affirmative action.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Mr Speaker, the Peace Accord was an Accord that was brought about by all political parties in this country, but not only all the political parties, all the other major role-players as well, and we know what the success of that Peace Accord was.  That is why we say we need something similar in this Province.

Mr Speaker, we support this motion, and we commit ourselves to uphold the spirit of unity of all the people of this, and the patriotism in South Africa, that is if this new patriotism includes all of us and is in the interests of all the people in this country.

We further commit ourselves to peace in this Province, but once again, the peace which all off us are part of, because all of us are feeling the problems around the peace situation.  It should not only be those role-players which the ANC would like to involve, it should be all role-players.

Mr Speaker, in closing, let me just say let all of us in this chamber, like Chief Luthuli said, unite against racialism, and work together as a strong unit in the interests of each and every person in this Province.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Waugh.  You were very good in conserving time.  I now call upon Mrs Mohlaka who has 11 minutes.  Will the hon member speak or not speak?

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, I wish to crave your indulgence, sir.  There has been a bit of a misunderstanding here.  Mrs Ngcobo was going to come in, in place of Mrs Mohlaka.  It was entirely my mistake.  I forgot to notify you of the change.  I crave your indulgence, sir.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Mr Chief Whip, it is very unfortunate that I have to make a ruling that Mrs Ngcobo is not going to speak, because in terms of a Rule that was formulated between ourselves and yourselves, the procedure is very clear.  If there are any changes there is a procedure that should be followed in order for those changes to take place.  Unfortunately I will have to rule in that manner.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  In that case, Mr Speaker, Mrs Mohlaka will speak.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mrs Mohlaka.

MRS B S MOHLAKA:  Thank you, Mr Speaker, and the hon House.  I am going to speak on a motion on the peace initiatives.

Every effort is being made in KwaZulu-Natal to promote peace, and of course the African National Congress knows that Chief Albert Luthuli was a peaceful person.  That is why many of our colleagues who used to be ANC were ANC then, but later things changed.  I just wish to pay tribute to ~Inkosi~ Luthuli.

I would like to plead with the media to promote peace, because the efforts that we make are shattered.  For instance, the other day when the Minister for Education and Culture presented his speech none of the media were in the gallery.  I do not know where they went, but yesterday when the Minister for the Department of Health was presenting his budget speech they were here, and they enjoyed the cocktail party with him.  That is what I would like to say in short.  As long as the media forms a barrier between the two bulls there will not be peace.

I am going to save your time today.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mrs Mohlaka.  I now wish to call upon Mr Gcabashe to close the debate on this matter.

MR S J GCABASHE:  Thanks very much once again, Mr Speaker.  First and foremost I would like to respond to the National Party and the DP.  I do not know where they get their facts, correct or wrong.  From its inception, the ANC promoted non-racialism and we were saying that South Africa belongs to all those who live and work in it.  We have never shifted from that policy.  Now I am surprised that you want to interpret what I have said differently.

The call that I was making to the IFP, and in particular the PAC; I started by saying that the project of nation building should continue, but it can never succeed without these organisations coming together, because we belong together.  Then we will be able to chart a way forward of how to involve other people.  I was misunderstood by these people, but you know exactly that that is the ANC policy.  

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One minute more for the hon member.

MR S J GCABASHE:  To Mr Burrows I wanted to say that I am worried that you still do not have any black member in your caucus.  You have won so many votes.

AN HON MEMBER:  Tell Nel to resign.

MR S J GCABASHE:  Lastly, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this debate.  Mr Speaker, my understanding is that it would appear that all parties are supporting this motion.  I will leave that to you.  I would like to thank all of those who have contributed, and certainly to say at the end we would like to know exactly as Ma Maria has said, what really happened during the death of Comrade Luthuli, because until now the facts have not been made available to us.  History and our generations want to know what transpired on that day.  Thanks very much.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Mrs Cronje.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, all the other parties have indicated to me that they are in support of our motion, and as the ANC we were very happy that this House is in agreement that 1998 also becomes the year of peace in KwaZulu-Natal.  We request you to put the matter to the vote.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Mr Premier.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  Before I accept this motion on behalf of this side of the House, I would like to correct Mr Waugh of the National Party.  He should not create an impression that there is going to be a multiparty involvement in the code of conduct because he has said so.  The Cabinet of this Province decided that this should be the process from here onwards.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE PREMIER:  I am very happy, Mr Speaker, to associate the IFP with the spirit of the great leader that we have seen in South Africa, Chief Albert Luthuli, during this year marking his centenary, and of course, marking the year of peace in KwaZulu-Natal.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Premier.  That closes the debate, and according to the procedure, I will now put the matter to the vote.  I will put the question.

THE MOTION AS PROPOSED BY MR S J GCABASHE - ACCEPTED

	This House noting that:

	1.	1998 marks the centenary of the birth of the stalwart of the liberation struggle, Chief Albert Luthuli;

	2.	Albert Luthuli was the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Africa in recognition of his heroic role and leadership in uniting our people, and his tireless and peaceful struggle for liberation; and

		Further noting the successful celebration of the Luthuli Centenary as highlighted by the multiparty co-operation when the Freedom of the town of KwaDukuza was conferred on him posthumously.

		Therefore resolve to commit ourselves:

	1.	to uphold the spirit of unity of all the people of this Province and the new patriotism in South Africa;  and

	2.	to commit ourselves to the eradication of political intolerance; the promotion of a human rights culture in the Province; and the creation of lasting peace, so that 1998 also becomes THE YEAR OF PEACE IN KWAZULU-NATAL, as a fitting tribute to the memory of this great son of Africa.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  That concludes our item 8.1 on the Order Paper.  I will now proceed with the Order Paper.

8.2	DEBATE ON THE MOTION INTRODUCED BY MR A J HAMILTON

MOTION:
		That this House believes that only by striving to achieve vigorous and sustained economic and infrastructural growth and development, will KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa as a whole be able to meet its objective of transformation and nation-building.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I will now call upon the Mr A J Hamilton to introduce the motion for 10 minutes.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Mr Speaker, April 1994 represented only a part of the transformation that has and is continuing to take place in South Africa.  1994 was a miracle, but it was only the beginning.

Every field of human endeavour in South Africa has had to change.  The process is still going on, and will go on into the future.

The business and economic branches of the South African society have had to change their whole modus operandi.  They found themselves in an unknown and alien environment compounded by high real interest rates, customs and excise protection barriers being removed left, right and centre, opening up South African markets to foreign imports, such as have not been seen for 30 years.  These products very often being much cheaper than the equivalent local products, largely as a result of the seige economy and the protection for local producers that went with the siege mentality, compounded very often with outdated production machinery, and a very undeveloped export culture.  Mr Speaker, we were used to selling most of our production in our own country, and the surrounding captive markets.

All this, Mr Speaker, against the uncertainty that a whole nation in a state of radical change and transformation brings with it, not least of which was a new and inexperienced Government having to learn and find its way.

Against this background, business has had to learn to become modern in its outlook and efficient in its production methods.  Export orientated in its pursuit of trade, no longer looking at Gauteng as our market, but at the big wide world beyond our shores.

There are very encouraging signs for us in this Province, Mr Speaker, because with the dawning of realisation and the understanding of the business or manufacturing community of what actually has taken place in South Africa, has come the realisation that if they are involved in any way in export or import trade operations, it is an act of folly to locate your means of production 600 kilometres away from the port of departure.

As we all know in this wonderful Province of ours, we have the two busiest ports on the continent, and in the case of Richards Bay, by the end of this year we will be the busiest bulk port in the world.  In the case of Durban in containerisation, we have one of the 10 busiest ports in the world, and the busiest container port in the Southern Hemisphere.  These are wonderful engines for growth.

The process of migration from Gauteng and other manufacturing regions in South Africa towards the coast, and for that you may read mostly the port cities of Durban and Richards Bay has already started.  Mr Speaker, it will continue and continue at a greater rate.

But, we have to be ready for that in our Province.  Our Government, like the business community, is going to have to learn to be flexible and not doctrinaire in its approach to delivering the goods and services that our people and our business community require, in order to give real meaning to change and transformation in South Africa.

We will have to forget about the old ways of doing things.  The old standards of building classrooms, the old standards of building Government buildings, the old way we do things.  We are desperately short of money in South Africa, we all know that.  We have spent the past two weeks discussing it, and without a growing economy our tax revenues are not going to rise.  Our ability to service the ever burgeoning demand for health services and education services will be increasingly curtailed.

Mr Speaker, my plea here is let us be flexible in this Government, and not only our Government, because we have top leadership here that is flexible, but the bureaucratic processes, let us be flexible there and indeed in the whole of South Africa.

We must also be very focused on achieving objectives that are achievable.  There will be times when we are unable to deliver all the things that we would like to deliver.  Let us concentrate on delivering meaningful things and discarding some other less important things in order to produce an economy that works to create the jobs we desperately need.

Perhaps, what I should say before I continue, is that the modernisation of the South African means of production and its philosophy of export is and will continue to come at a high cost.  That cost, Mr Speaker, is going to be increasing job shedding.  Sophisticated industries do not create jobs.  I mean that in a relative term, in terms of Rands invested for jobs created, they do not have a good record, but we need them and they must be encouraged.

How do we combat this, Mr Speaker?  We have to do everything in our power to produce youngsters at school who leave school with a skill, a life skill in their hands that will enable them to enter the economy when they finish school.  Job creation in South Africa is going to depend largely on small and medium sized businesses.  We need to teach our children in school the philosophy of entrepreneurship, because until now, for years past, the kind of school leavers we have produced have very often been people that were interested in their retirement benefits before they even started work.

I would speak for an education system that delivers this kind of youngster into our economy, shows them what the concept of entrepreneurship can be and gives them a vision of being their own employer.  Teach them basic business economics, basic accounting.  I am not speaking for this as a failing or passing subject, I am saying it should be taught in our schools as an informative and developing syllabus, an addition to syllabi as it were.  We have to show the children what they can do with  themselves and for themselves. 

We need, Mr Speaker, to develop an environment in which small and medium size enterprises can grow and flourish.  It is developing, but I plead that we do not make the mistake of hamstringing the development of small and medium enterprise.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  30 seconds.

MR A J HAMILTON:  By lumbering them with inflexible and rigid labour legislation, which most of them do not understand anyway.  Hell, I do not understand it half the time myself.  I am scared of it and that makes me a reluctant employer.  So let us be very careful we do not strangle that great hope for job creation at birth by imposing first world labour laws on it.

Secondly, Mr Speaker, let us concentrate on investing money in the fields of economic endeavour that will result in job creation.  There is no more effective way of doing that in the short term, than by massive promotion of the tourism industry.  There is no industry that comes close to that for the opportunity to create jobs, and the opportunity to develop SMMEs within this industry.

Mr Speaker, I am singling out tourism, because this National Government, the same as National Governments in the past, has failed to actually realise the potential, or lacks the political will to invest money in the promotion of South Africa, overseas, as a wonderful tourist destination.  We have a paltry R64,7 million to market out country.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The time is up for the hon member.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Thank you, sir.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Hamilton.  I now call upon Mr S Mtetwa, who has eight minutes.

MR S N MTETWA:  Mr Speaker, allow me to say something about the sustained economic growth and nation building debate that is taking place this morning.  I think it is healthy.  It is time for us to begin debating these issues.

Firstly, Mr Speaker, I think we all agree that we do need sustained economic growth development and nation building.  But the main question for all of us, which will differ in response, is to how do we do that?  Economic growth, as far as I am concerned, lies with three major role-players.  The role-players being business, labour and us as the Government.  The others like the investors and consumers act on what we do and judge us on our action.  Good relationships need to be built amongst these three major role-players.

Mr Speaker, we differ in response in this manner.  Some say sustained economic growth needs to come first before transformation.  We say no, transformation first, then economic growth.  It is obvious.

Of course, I agree with the hon member Mr Hamilton when he said 1994 was a beginning.  When we entered the arena of South African politic transformation, the graph chart turned and went up for economic growth.  Transformation must happen in order to level the ground for good relationships amongst the three major role-players.

I therefore say the policy of affirmative action, the Equity Bill, Conditions of Employment Act, is being amended, for the very same reason, nothing else.  It is about bringing about economic growth, and of course, development and nation building.

Let me, Mr Speaker, say briefly,

TRANSLATION:  At times it is confusing when you find that just because we belong to one side, we speak the same language and yet we are not the same, we are from different families, who are from oppressed areas and who are from areas that were not oppressed.  We just met here, yet we find ourselves speaking the same language.

I am saying, if I am hungry I will not be able to work, because I will not have enough strength.  Secondly, I am saying, even if I have strength, if I do not have knowledge of using skills, what I attempt to do will not have results, because strength alone, without knowledge, is not enough.

It is because of that reason that you find unions saying, no, business people cannot just look at profit alone, they have to invest money.  If a person started at a firm as a sweeper, by the time he leaves, he should be a driver.  If he entered operating a machine, when he leaves, he should be a Manager or a Director.

He should be empowered and be given skills, so that we can say our economy will grow.  He should leave here and be a manager somewhere else.  He should leave knowing what takes place where he is.  Then investors will judge that and see that it is well planned and then invest.  If business people are just going to look only at their side and workers look only at their side, and we in the Government hesitate to bring together role players to a progressive situation using legislation, then there will be a problem.  T/E

On nation-building, Mr Speaker, our country itself has people from different ethnic languages, cultures and religions.  We do not need to focus on these as they are going to divide us.  Let us try and focus on things that are going to unite and bring us together.  I will mention some.

You take the Constitution of this country.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One more minute.

MR S N MTETWA:  Thank you.  A document that creates room for everybody, no matter what language he or she speaks.  We take sport.  I was very happy when the hon Bhamjee raised a motion, an the hon Premier Ngubane, Mbovu, supported the President on the sport issues, because sport brings people together.


TRANSLATION:  One day, Speaker, I want to see us playing together as young and old Bafana Bafana, and bring staff members on each side, and play, and socialise for the world to see.  Thank you, Speaker.  [LAUGHTER]  T/E

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you from the hon member.  I now wish to call upon Mr Bartlett.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Mr Speaker, I listened very carefully to the hon member Mr Mtetwa's address to this hon House, and it occurred to me, sir, that it is a pity that we have such little time to debate this subject in the spirit and the mood that has developed here in this House this morning.  I say this because I really believe that every one of us who are here, studying this motion, want to see South Africa, and especially our great Province as a dynamic, thriving and prosperous country to live in so that all our people can enjoy a very high and good quality of life.

The hon member hit the nail on the head when he said there is a difference of opinion.  He said, and I tried to hear him clearly, and if I have not heard you correctly, I apologise, but he said that some say, sustainable economic growth must come first, before transformation, while others say that transformation, must come first and then comes economic growth.

This is the real nub of the hon member Mr Hamilton's motion.  That is how do we get to the point where we have both transformation and growth thriving at the same time?  It was a great American President Abraham Lincoln who liberated the slaves, who said you cannot make the weak strong by making the strong weak.  He also went further and said you cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor.

Now sir, as one who served my time as a teenager working at the bench carrying a union card, I know what it is to work.  I also know what it is like to be poor.  I know what it takes to educate oneself through hard work.  I at no time tried to make the rich poor, and indeed looking back the rich assisted me to uplift myself to become rich.  That is why, sir, at this time of my life, in my latter years, I endeavour to assist poor people where I can.

AN HON MEMBER:  Where?

MR G S BARTLETT:  Not in a form of cheap charity, but sincerely helping people to improve their positions and to uplift themselves.  I am not going to answer that hon member's question, "where", because it is an insolent question when I am being sincere today.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  No, on a point there, hon Speaker.  You cannot say someone is insolent.

AN HON MEMBER:  But he is.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  No, that is out of order.

AN HON MEMBER:  But you were.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  I mean really you should rule on that.  That is unparliamentary.

AN HON MEMBER:  You were.

MR G S BARTLETT:  If he wants to know, sir, and I did not want to mention it, but I really am paying the University fees of a black man studying at university to become an engineer like I am.  I am also helping another child who is now attending a decent primary school, who came out of a township where there is no school, it is a shambles.  I do not want to mention any more, but I do these things, not because I want to brag about them, but  to say to that hon member, there comes a time when a person is being sincere, he should, with respect to him, sir, keep his mouth shut.

AN HON MEMBER:  Ja, keep your mouth shut.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Getting back to this debate, sir, on the issue the hon member raised, i.e. which comes first sustained economic growth or transformation?  We have got to look at this issue in a broader sense.  You will not get sustained economic growth if you present a picture of transformation which is going to challenge the very essence of the drive in the minds of people and in their "guts" that makes them work and which says: "I am being threatened in my endeavour in what I want to do".  There has got to be a certain freedom, which I believe is entrenched in our Constitution, freedom to pursue ones entrepreneurial spirit and ones enterprise, such as the security of tenure of ones assets one wishes to develop and prosper from.

I am going to raise a point, sir, which bothers me deeply.  When I finished the agricultural debate earlier this week, and I walked down this isle, the hon member there, Mr Bheki Cele, stopped me and asked "Where did you get your farm"?  I said, "What do you mean" and he repeated his question, "Where did you get your farm".  I replied, "I bought it with my own hard earned money".  He said, "No, you did not, you stole it".  [LAUGHTER]

AN HON MEMBER:  It is stolen property.

MR G S BARTLETT:  You see, Mr Speaker, regrettably, and I say this to those hardworking people out there, regrettably there is this school of thought in this hon House which I believe  comes from the communist side of the ANC.  Give me a good African nationalist any day, sir, because I am a good South African nationalist.  I love my nation, including the Africans that make up the nation.  But it is the communist side of the ANC that says: "You stole the land".

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR G S BARTLETT:  Sure I worked and I borrowed money, and I went out on a limb to borrow money and at one time I was working about 16 hours a day, my friend, and not like some people in your benches who have never done a real day's work in their lives.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION AND LAUGHTER

MR G S BARTLETT:  Well, if that is the case, sir, as the hon member Mr Burrows has asked who stole the land from the Khoi and the Bushman, sir?  Speak to some of the tribal people to the south of Natal and ask them what they think of what happened to them from the north of Natal, and make no mistake, Mr Chairman, there are those who are going to rewrite history according to their ideas, without a doubt.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The hon member has one minute.

MR G S BARTLETT:  One minute, sir, thanks.  I want to get back to this point.  I would like to get together with men and women who are prepared to work, who are prepared to uplift people, who are prepared to work hard, who are prepared to share their brains, their labours, their machines, their assets for development to create wealth so that the taxman will not overtax us, which destroys the incentive and the initiative: but would have a broad enough tax base to get the funds for more schools, more training colleges, more incentives so that we can push our economy forward and become a truly winning nation.  I believe we can do it.  I know my people.  I may not speak Zulu fluently, but Zulus helped me to get what I have today, and that is why today I try and help Zulus to enjoy a bit of what I have enjoyed, sir, and I mean that in all sincerity.

That is why I have been in Parliament to try and make changes appear.  I was not always a NAT, I fought the NATS for 10 years, but I saw the NATS change.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Time is up.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I now call upon Mr Aulsebrook.  You have 10 minutes.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  This motion gets to the heart of what is required to ensure transformation and upliftment of the people of this country.  Time and time again we hear people stand up and say all the right things.  We all acknowledge that economic growth is basically what we have got to strive for, but it does not seem to go much further than this chamber.  You can look at Hansard.  Hansard is full of wonderful speeches on what is needed to be done, but once we leave here very few of us do anything about actually promoting economic growth.

Here I single out one particular exception, and that is the Premier.  He has in fact on a daily basis done everything he can to promote economic growth in this Province.  Often criticised for doing that by members of the opposition in this House.  Quite honestly, let us not merely make speeches for the sake of Hansard.  Let us get out there and try and implement some of the things we say here.  In acknowledging what the hon Mr Mtetwa across the other side said, that there are times when we have got to start thinking in terms of economic growth before some of the transformation issues that we wish to implement.

Going back to the 1994 elections.  There was euphoria in this country.  We had come out of a situation where everyone had anticipated civil war, and I must admit, I was impressed with the way in which even the white communities had changed.  I really expected a terrific resistance.  I thought they would never start changing, but I have been impressed by the way in which they had started, and how they accepted the new democracy and went into it enthusiastically.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  There may have been exceptions sure.  In the right wing there were exceptions, but by enlarge they were ready to start working towards a new South Africa.

AN HON MEMBER:  Not racist like Makhaye.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  There were so many doomsday prophets about what would happen after 1994.  Those have all disappeared now.  We know what we have got, and we are working towards what is best for all of our people.  As from 1994, I would like to put people into two categories.

Firstly, there were those who are commonly known as the have nots, those that came from disadvantaged backgrounds and it was the promises that made them excited about our new democracy, and the future we were going into.  Then there was the other group.  Those who were possibly in business and who thought well, the lifting of sanctions would bring about a boom.

Both lots of those people have been let down, because one, we have not been able to deliver on those promises that were made before 1994.  The boom has not taken place, and we have got to now start examining why this is happening.  Why and what it is that we have not done as Government.  Maybe we have not created that right climate yet, because quite honestly, unless we start getting economic growth, unemployment is going to be with us.

Transformation has been slow, and unless we start economically empowering people, transformation will be even slower.  One thing about transformation is that we have also failed to define transformation.  People do not really know what it is they are working towards in transformation.  The sooner one is able to say this is where we want to go, and set a realistic time frame to get there, then we will actually achieve it.  Without a definition and without time frames, we are never going to get there.

To me transformation should start with improved education and training.  The hon Mr Hamilton touched on it, providing life skills in training and education are most important.  But everything depends on basically getting a sound economy in place.  Here I must admit that when one talks about a growing economy, it has just become a saying that everybody uses easily and do not worry to actually sit down and work out what is needed to do it.  One just needs to simply look at what economic growth means.

Take, for instance, just a simple single company.  If it grows it employs more people, but what makes it grow?  Here the hon Mr Mtetwa spoke about people being too profit motivated and focused.  Well, that is what makes companies grow.  The fact that they are making a profit will result in growth and they will be able to employ more people.  That is very, very basic economics, and that is what our country also needs.  They need to see some form of proper motive to start growing and then they will in turn be able to reinvest.  We as a country will levy a lot more taxes and we can invest in the social upliftment of this country.

A little while ago I happened to hear one of the COSATU spokesman saying that the Government should not be contemplating retrenchments and down-sizing, they should in fact be thinking about employing more people.  We have just been through a budget process.  We realise the predicament we find ourselves in, and those sort of statements are totally irrational and irresponsible to go along and suggest things of that nature.

Certainly in economic growth what we should focus ourselves on in creating a climate for economic growth, is how everyone can participate and share in economic growth.  This is where one can talk about economic development and economic empowerment of the people.  Those are the areas we should be focusing on instead of some of the rhetoric that is going around, and particularly Bills that are being passed that may hamper economic growth.

We as a House here need to take a resolution in supporting this motion, and say that we will do everything in our power to promote economic growth within this Province, and in doing so we would also be assisting the rest of South Africa.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Aulsebrook.  Now I call upon Mr Wessel Nel, who has five minutes.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I listened with interest to the hon Mr Mtetwa, when he spoke of looking for the things that unite us, and I thought that maybe now with Mr Louis Luyt gone, we can start a rugby club in this House and challenge the National Parliament to a match.  I thought it would be quite appropriate if we had the hon Premier and the hon Mr Mtetwa in the front row to give us some stability.  Perhaps with the hon Mr Gcabashe at scrum half to take the gaps, and maybe if we really wanted to confuse Cape Town and the National Parliament, we could have the supreme ducker and diver, the hon Rajbansi in the side as well.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  INTERJECTION.

AN HON MEMBER:  They are on the right.

MR W U NEL:  Mr Speaker, but in all seriousness, this is an excellent motion and I am surprised that the hon Mr Hamilton was so subdued in presenting it.  It is indeed a pity that we have only got an hour to talk about it, because the matters that are raised here go to the guts, not only of transformation and nation building, but about the future of this country.  I think it needs a very serious debate, the issues we have raised.  In five minutes I cannot respond, but the hon Mr Mtetwa raised the issue of growth before transformation, or the other way around.  Those are serious things that we need to, as a House, not only the people outside, but we as a House need to debate them very, very seriously.

No one can deny that we need a very concerted effort at nation building in this country.  Why do we need it?  It is because we were divided.  It is because there was discrimination and it is because there are people who felt lesser South Africans than others, for understandable reasons for tens of years, maybe centuries.  That has to be put right.  Other nations do not have that problem.  They have rich and poor, and all of that, but they do not have a situation where some people felt totally excluded by right and by law.  That has to be put right, sir.

For this reason we know that transformation has to come, and has to come fast.  We do not just want to give everybody a fair bite at the cherry and divide the cherry we have.  We do not want to simply all end up with less.  We need to actually multiply what we have so we can build a nation that can hold its head up high in the modern world, sir.

If we want to realise the vision which Deputy President Mbeki speaks of, of a renaissance, that involves building a better and a wealthier South Africa that can address the needs of the poor.

AN HON MEMBER:  It means nationalising.

MR W U NEL:  I hear it means nationalising.  Sir, I actually would not mind that much if nationalisation, and I say that in all sincerity to the hon member, if nationalisation were to be able to bring growth and a better deal for everybody in this country, I would actually not be that concerned about it.  Quite frankly, nothing in the world has ever proved that there is one iota of truth in that assertion however, and that is what concerns me about the hon members.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR W U NEL:  That is what concerns me.  I argued the other day when we were talking about growth, I said that had we since 1994, and I am not talking about before 1994, because other people were responsible for the mess that happened before, but if since 1994 we had had the kind of growth that we were capable of, instead of bickering and having violence, whether it is taxi violence, or political violence, or economic uncertainty, etcetera, if we had had growth rates ranging from three and half, perhaps up to eight, which is quite achievable for us, we would by now have generated perhaps 50% more in income tax to be able to deliver the services which Government should deliver.  If all of that had been shared out between provinces, this Province would have had a budget perhaps ranging around R30 billion, not R17,5 by now.  If that were the case, we would not be retrenching teachers, we would be hiring more specialist teachers to impart the skills to the people who actually need the skills to be able to enter the market, as the hon Mtetwa says.  It does not help only not to be hungry, you also need skills to participate.  That is the happy situation we could have been in.

That is why I think this motion really goes to the heart of our problems, sir.  If we could generate sustained economic growth, and sustained infrastructural investment, and I refer back to the hon Minister of Transport's speech, where he talked about the Eshowe/~Ulundi~ road.  He said had we resealed it this year it would have cost us R4,3 million.  If we wait now, because there is no money, and that is what is going to happen.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  One minute more.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  If we wait now to the year 2005, which is inevitably going to happen because there is no money, it is then going to cost us R30 million.  He further said, "Will R30 million be available in 2005, or will the Eshowe/~Ulundi~ road, like many other roads, simply revert to gravel after 2007?".

That is the dilemma we face.  We need a situation where we immediately generate sustained economic growth so that we can invest in infrastructure, so that we can transform.  That does not mean to say we must not start transforming right now, but if we want sustainable transformation and nation building we have got to have a better deal for everybody.  I hope we will all co-operate to that end.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Nel.  I now call upon Dr M O Sutcliffe.  You have 10 minutes.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Thank you, hon Speaker.  I rise on a motion that confuses me a bit.  Being a social scientist one knows that the real science is the art of dialectical materialism.  In a sense when you look at this issue, that is what we are talking about, because there is a dialectical relationship between economic growth, and infrastructural development on the one hand, and transformation and nation building on the other hand.  You cannot have one without the other.

If you look at the societies in the East that some people in this room will be pointing to and say, "Look at the economic growth rate they have".  You will find that some like Indonesia today exploding because people were poor and starving, and workers were  treated in terrible conditions.  You will find similar things occurring in Malaysia.  Let us be very careful in this House.  Do not act like political chameleons simply because we stand in a room full of right wing business people, and we say, "Well, we must get rid of the Basic Conditions of Service", or "We must not have Employment Equity", or whatever.  Let us be very careful that we are not postponing a rebellion in this country to a later day.  So I would urge, when we stand up here and we look at issues like this, we look at them dialectically.

I was standing in ~Ulundi~ a few weeks ago and thought about what that town could be if we simply dealt with the issue of transformation.  The first thing that I noticed in a space of two or three hours, were three huge Corobrik trucks coming up from Durban carrying bricks, I presume paid for by this Government, into ~Ulundi~ or somewhere near ~Ulundi~ for house building.  What simpler thing is there in society than to manufacture bricks?  Why is it that we are paying in Durban for Corobrik to manufacture bricks and take them to ~Ulundi~?

A second thing that struck me as I stood in ~Ulundi~ and looked out over the plains, was a train travelling down from the coalfields and the iron ore fields to Richards Bay.  I thought as I left that afternoon and picked up a hitchhiker - that person was in fact travelling to Empangeni - but they could not get a simple train between the two.  Because under ~Apartheid~, Africans specifically were never put on public transport routes.  If you were in Inanda you could not get a train ride into Durban.  If you are in ~Ulundi~ you cannot really get a train ride anywhere.  You rely primarily on private transport.

Those are simple things that require transformation.  Those do not require laws, they require changes of attitude.  Simple things of saying why do we not start talking about a passenger service utilising that line.  How do you begin to get small entrepreneurs who exist throughout our Province on board.

The issue of transformation for me is a very simple issue.  My hon colleague over there questioned this thing of transformation.  What is this thing of transformation?  For me it has three elements.

The first is, creating a representative society, because in every society undergoing liberation, the ones that succeeded were those that very quickly said let us transform the base of the entrepreneurs in that society.  If we as Government would have taken all of those people, including even in this Legislature, two years ago who really had no jobs, (and come here each day and read books or play computer games), if we simply said to those people go to technical colleges, technikons, we will pay for you, that would have been cheaper than actually having them here, wondering about what their life is going to be somewhere down the road.  Reading each year that our budgets are getting smaller and the possibility of their retrenchment is even greater.

As a simple issue is something that we can do.  It is within our control to say to those people, "Well, we do not require you to sit in an office here, rather let us take you to a technikon, let us take you to an educational institution and improve your skills for the next two years, and then you will not even need to be retrenched because you can find a job elsewhere".  That is the issue that the hon Mtetwa was talking about.  That we have to skill and reskill people.

The first issue about transformation is creating a representative society in every sector.  We still get on aeroplanes today that are, and excuse this language, full of white business people who now have simply expanded their borders of operation into Africa, certainly overseas, (most of them avoided sanctions anyway), and so they went abroad.  But all they have done is expanded there and they talk quite openly on those planes about how they are now avoiding taxes through offshore schemes and the like.  What we have to do is to begin to create that nation building, that South Africanism that makes them realise it is their patriotic duty to our country to build it here, not to escape with their tax into tax havens elsewhere.  So representivity is number one.

The second thing is that you must change the system in which we deliver our economy, and we deliver our politics in our society here.  Our governance is still not flexible enough where we can get local changes moving.  At a Finance Committee level we have complained about most departments not having responsibility managers.  Often the Deputy Director-General is the only person that makes the 101 decisions.  We do not actually focus on making sure that people take responsibility themselves.  The second element is changing the whole system in the economy, as well as in this governance here.

There is a third issue, and that is the issue of equity.  It is making sure that we divert our resources to areas in which those resources are most needed.  When we are talking about transformation it is our fundamental responsibility, to make sure that the resources of our society are going to the places they are needed the most, and those are the poorest.  Not just the poorest 40%, but the poor people in our society.  That is where our attention should be, so that when we do go to those so-called haves, and give talks, we confront them with that very simple fact, that their future lies in the future of those who do not have, and unless they understand that, there will be no future for them.

Instead of that, we have a tendency to give voice and expression to those who shout the loudest at us, who come and fill these corridors with consultants and the like, who come here and engage with us and we start saying at the end of each year, but why are these consultants not changing?  Because many of the consultants we are employing are people who simply have a voice and do not have the skills.  There are an enormous number of people, Africans in particular whose skills are never utilised by this Government.  In simple ways we can start saying we must reverse that.

I urge today that the future of economic growth, of infrastructural development lies in transformation and nation building.  Unless we can begin to say: what do you do about Vryheid and Mondlo, where people were literally dumped 55 kilometres away from work opportunities.  Unless we address those issues, or in ~Ulundi~ that is sitting there with huge opportunities, but nothing actually happening because the train is still carrying iron ore from one part of the Province down to the coastline, or the Corobriks are still bringing in the bricks, or whatever else is happening there.  Unless we begin to focus on that change there will be neither transformation nor economic growth.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you very much, Dr Sutcliffe.  I now wish to call upon Minister Singh, who also has 10 minutes.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.  I cannot help but agree with the hon Mr Nel, that the motion before us here requires more time for this House to debate.  It is a very serious topic, and I want to thank the hon Mr Hamilton for having placed this on the Order Paper for today.

Mr Speaker, I believe that debate on this particular topic has taken place in this House before.  We should not allow this debate to end up being all talk and no action.  If we are seriously interested about the future, economic growth of KwaZulu-Natal and of South Africa in general, then we really need to translate it into tangible terms, whatever expressions have emanated from all the hon members in this House.  There have been some very, very valuable inputs made from members from both sides of this House on the issue of vigorous and sustained economic growth, and the objective of transformation and nation building.

Mr Speaker, through the offices of the hon Premier, KwaZulu-Natal has embarked upon a provincial growth and development strategy.  This process is underway.  I think for this process to succeed, and for us to be able to gain maximum benefit from whatever emanates from this particular strategy, the House, this Legislature, needs to own that document.  We all need to make our inputs.  I would like to suggest that sometimes, instead of spending an hour or two hours on motions like this that we have on Fridays, which are a valuable exercise, we need maybe to spend an entire day to analyse this strategic plan that is being placed before us, to make our inputs and to see how, at the end of the day, we can implement, which is what the hon Mr Aulsebrook said.  We need to implement these strategies that we develop.

One of the issues that has arisen today is the question of transformation first, or sustained economic growth.  I am pleased that the hon Dr Sutcliffe has somewhat taken a different line from the hon Mr Mtetwa, where Mr Mtetwa indicated that it should be transformation first and then sustained economic growth.  We on this side of the House believe that what the hon Dr Sutcliffe said is correct.  We need these two processes to compliment each other.  We need to work on this, side by side.  We must not go back to the old adage of education before liberation, and liberation before education.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  We know that there were certain failings in those things that we promoted in the past.  The IFP always said that through education we could empower the struggle for liberation.  I think we have been right in that particular process.

Therefore, we are calling for sustained economic growth that will carry the process of transformation forward.  I am glad that now on both sides of the House, and other members, will be able to look at it in a holistic manner, and plan accordingly.

Mr Speaker, I think it is quite evident that what we need is what is stated in this motion, but there are constraints.  Like other hon members of the House have indicated, we have listened to these constraints during the whole of this week as the Ministers of the different portfolios presented to us what their constraints were.  It is financial constraints.  Hence the need to develop partnerships.  Partnerships between the public, private sector and labour, as the hon Mr Mtetwa said.  I agree with him, that we need to develop these partnerships.

But the role of Government is to create a framework that is conducive to promoting investments, national and international investments to attract those kind of investments into the country.

In saying that, we have got to ensure that we do not only have proper infrastructure, but that there is a degree and a semblance of social order prevailing in the country and in the Province, which exists at this moment in time, and we are grateful that the processes of 1994 have contributed to that.  We have got to ensure that the security of the people are ensured.  I think what has happened in Isithebe is regrettable.  We read in the newspaper about these businessmen wanting to withdraw their investments.  That is going to be quite a blow to job creation and unemployment in this particular Province.  We need to make sure as Government, not only the KwaZulu-Natal Government, but as the Government of South Africa that we need to create a climate which will allow people to invest in this particular country and in this Province.  Crime has become a major issue, and we need to tackle this issue of crime on an urgent basis.  

Notwithstanding that, Mr Speaker, when one encourages investments from overseas, whilst we require the wealth that they bring in, in terms of the billions of Rands that they may invest in projects, I think we have a responsibility to ensure that whatever investment takes place in this Province it is linked to job creation.  For very often we find that with modern technology people came in here with the most modern machines and employing 12 or 15 people in a factory that has a turnover of millions of Rands.

I think we have a responsibility to ensure, as leaders in this Province, that whenever investors want to come here we must call them to our offices, sit with them and find out what spin-off is this going to have in terms of job creation, not what spin-off it is going to have in terms of the profits that they may make out of those businesses.  Not the spin-offs that it may generate in terms of the mineral resources, and other resources that we have available here in this Province that they are going to utilise.

I was talking to a representative of a very, very large country in the world, who indicated to us that that is the attitude that they are following.  That is the process they are following.  Investors come in, tell us how it is going to contribute to the economic growth of this country, not for their own growth.

Mr Speaker, in so far as the budget that we are going to approve in a couple of weeks time, 85% of that budget goes towards education, health and welfare.  We must guard against also putting too much of our resources into those three areas.  Coming from the background that we have come, it is important that we do that in the short term, but in the medium to long term we do not want to produce masses of students who have degrees, who have BAs and BScs and whatever degrees, even if it is MB ChBs, but will not be able to find jobs.  We find this in India, where people with degrees, double degrees are walking the streets, and they are not in a position to find jobs.  We must be able to balance the need to create jobs, and the need to educate our people.  Therefore I agree with the hon member Mr Hamilton, that life skills in our education process is so important.

Mr Speaker, we as the IFP believe that we must create a self-reliant community.  I have just heard that outside here we have about 300 or 400 people toyi-toying for some reason or other, municipal workers walking down the streets.  We must see whether the labour laws and other laws that we have in place are not too rigid, like the hon Mr Aulsebrook said, to allow people, investors, whoever to come in and trade freely.

We need to examine these things.  We need to sit and we need to debate.  We do not need to stand on this side of the House and say the Equity Bill should be thrown out of the window, or we do not need members on that side of the House to say it is the best thing that could happen.  We need to sit and see how that Bill is going to benefit the people of KwaZulu-Natal and the people of this country.  I welcome the suggestion by the hon Dr Sutcliffe, that we need to do that.  We really need to sit and talk about these things.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The Minister has one minute.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  We need to look at the free trade barriers that are promoted by the Department of Trade and Industry.  Yes, we have allowed companies to come in and trade in this country.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Yes, we are global players.  We want to get onto the global market and become players there, but are we not sometimes doing it at the expense of jobs in our Province, and in our own country?  Look at what is happening in the textile and the leather industry.  Thousands of people are losing their jobs because of goods that we can import cheaply.  Consumers benefit yes, we agree, but we will really have to look at this very, very carefully so that we do not shoot ourselves in the foot in the process.  Unfortunately, sometimes with us trying to think that we are first world, but yet we are still in a third world country, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, and unemployment is increasing.

Mr Speaker, the last issue of concern is the fact that our growth is centred in the urban areas.  We need to move away from an urban bias and concentrate on infrastructural growth in the rural areas.  Most of the members that have spoken in whatever portfolios have agreed that that is the way we need to go, otherwise people will get attracted to the bright lights of the city where there are no job opportunities, where the incidents of AIDS and other infectious diseases are on the increase and where they live in informal ghettos.  We should be ploughing our resources and our energies into the rural areas, where people can have income generating jobs.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  Mr Minister, it looks like we have come to the end of the debate on this motion. Maybe let me hear from the Chief Whip.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, it seems to be an oversight on the part of the Minister.  As is customary, the IFP now withdraws the motion in its name.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  That is the indication I was seeking.

THE MOTION AS INTRODUCED BY MR A J HAMILTON - WITHDRAWN

		MOTION:

		That this House believes that only by striving to achieve vigorous and sustained economic and infrastructural growth and development, will KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa as a whole be able to meet its objective of transformation and nation-building.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Now that the motion has been withdrawn, I will then proceed to 8.3 on the Order Paper, which is a debate on the motion which will be introduced by Mr Burrows. 

8.3	DEBATE ON THE MOTION INTRODUCED BY MR R M BURROWS

	MOTION:

	THAT THIS HOUSE:

	Recognising:

	1.	The responsible and vital role of its members both individually and within the various structures of the KZN Parliament;

	2.	The importance of clear distinctions between the role played by individuals, political parties, structures of Parliament and the Provincial Cabinet;

	3.	The need to make the most effective use of the available time and Parliament's human and financial resources;

	4.	The scope for NCOP and MINMEC in order to put the KZN case for an equitable share of finances and resources;

	5.	The need to expand public interest and participation in the Legislature's activities.

	THEREFORE CALLS ON THIS HOUSE:

	(a)	To form a small multiparty committee to restructure the Parliamentary calendar to make better use of members' time and expertise;

	(b)	Ensure that one parliamentary official is responsible for formal communication to and from the Executive by the Legislature and Portfolio Committees;

	(c)	To make the fullest possible use of the NCOP and MINMEC meetings to put the case of KwaZulu-Natal's fiscal, material and human resource needs;

	(d)	Ensure that an agreed guide to relations between the Legislature and the Executive is completed as soon as possible;

	(e)	Immediately proceed to compile a policy initiative on public access to the KwaZulu-Natal Parliament and to place it before the Executive Board.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I request Mr Burrows to introduce that motion for 10 minutes.

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I move the motion standing to my name on the Order Paper.  Mr Speaker, I know that for some people a debate about the performance and activities of this House does not raise the same kind of fire in the belly that the debate on other motions that we have had this morning might have done, but I believe it is of fundamental importance that we actually consider our own task and role in this Legislature.

We took our seats in this Legislature, sir, almost exactly four years ago.  If a report card had to be written for each of us, we have performed in a patchy manner, some have performed better than others and some have not performed at all.  I have no doubt that if awards were given, they would go in scatterings across the House.  But the final statement on the report card would have been something along the lines of: "Tried their best, but still learning".

It now appears to be the time when we actually have got to say there is one year to go until the next election, at which time this House will be reduced in number from 85 that it is currently, to 80.  That is what the new Constitution says the maximum size of the House should be.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR R M BURROWS:  The Democratic Party says that the 900 members of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures should be reduced to around about 300 or 400, and so we could go along with that, but we do not know why you did not agree with us at the constitutional discussions, but nevertheless.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR R M BURROWS:  If he thinks he is that much of a magician, then he has got another thing coming.  The reality, sir, is that we need to actually sit down quietly and calmly, and look at the effects, both of the new Constitution, because it is significantly different in some aspects from the Interim Constitution under which we formed this House originally, and drafted our Rules.

Secondly, we have to look at the consequences of the changed legal position we find ourselves in at the present moment, including the effects of the Patricia de Lille case and the effects of parliamentary privilege.  These have to be done.

Sir, with our 80 members, 10 members of the Cabinet, we need to take account of the fact that two seats of the Legislature needs an adaptation in our Rules and in our ways of behaviour, if there are to be two.  If there is only to be one, then that has to be decided within this House, or by means of a House decision.

We need fundamentally to reassess the portfolio committees' work and manner of working.  We have had during the course of the past four years many meetings cancelled, rescheduled, missed, people have driven to ~Ulundi~ to find a meeting cancelled, or come to Pietermaritzburg.  I look at the hon member Combrink who has driven from Louwsburg to Maritzburg to find that there was not a meeting.  This just simply should not occur in an organisation that sets itself up to be the oversight structure of 180 000 people working in this Province in the Provincial Administration.  If anybody should be getting things right, we should, and quite frankly we are not.

Sir, we know that there have been parliamentary sittings postponed for various excuses, cost, or because the Executive was not available, or the Executive did not want it, or a whole variety of things.  We need to sit down and work these through very carefully.

We need to understand that there has, and it was particularly evident at the beginning of this sitting, a breakdown in communication between the Executive and the Legislature.  Where the Legislature, I believe quite rightly, through its Portfolio Committee on Finance, took a decision to draft a report and submit it to this Legislature, at which point the Executive took umbrage with that report.  To me that underscores the breakdown in communication.  I do not want to say one was right, and the other was wrong.  I want to say that there was a clear misunderstanding of the function of that report.  That is really what we need to get to the bottom of.

Also, sir, that concerns portfolio committees.  It is not possible for portfolio committees to function without the full co-operation and assistance of their Ministers - the MECs, and the departments.  Neither is it possible, I would have thought, for the Ministers to function without the portfolio committees being fully informed and in co-operation with the MECs, and that is not happening.  We need to see whether we are making full use of the NCOP.  As a Province, and the NCOP newsletter that we received recently, makes it clear that this Province is doing its very best to make the NCOP work.

There is another mechanism of inter-governmental co-operation.  The MINMECs, the ministerial and MECs' meetings that occur.  Quite frankly, this House is left totally out of those kind of contacts, and we know what is happening at those MINMEC meetings, are budgetary discussions, are pre-discussions on legislation, are pre-discussions on policy, and this House and its portfolio committees have no insight whatsoever.  We need to say it loudly and clearly to the MECs, you have got to provide some mechanism, even if it is regular briefings to the portfolio committees and the Legislature as to what is happening at MINMEC meetings.

For example, sir, we discover that the case for KwaZulu-Natal in terms of funding in education needs to be strongly and convincingly put by all members at NCOP and MINMEC meetings, otherwise, you know, really we are taken by surprise to find ourselves the lowest per capita education spending in the country.  I find this utterly unbelievable.

We need to look at the question of public access.  I applaud the Secretariat of the Legislature, sir, for making access to Greene Chambers for a person in a wheelchair.  There is no access to the public gallery in this building for a member of the public, who is disabled, to observe our proceedings.  You cannot get there.  We need to raise and say those kind of things, sir.  We need to draw the importance of drawing the public into our participation.  We have changed completely, and we recognise that one of the transforming things of the 1994 and 1996 Constitutions are the fact that we are an open democracy.  We are not a closed democracy.  The figure of Queen Victoria outside, next to her, should be somebody else who is saying this is open, it is not Victorian any more.  The public is welcome, and Madam, those things need to be taken into account, also in ~Ulundi~.

For example, I would have thought that by now we would have at least participated with some of our tourist organisations to say come to ~Ulundi~, come and view the Legislature in session, come and look at the cultural activities, and come and look at the wild animals in the Umfolozi.  From wild animals in the House to wild animals outside.  It is exactly correct, sir.  Madam Speaker, I am sorry I keep referring to you as "sir".  Please do not take umbrage, Madam Speaker.

That is why the Democratic Party proposes, and we know these proposals have come from other parts of the House as well, so we do not claim them as DP proposals.  We need to look at a new calender, Madam Speaker.  We need to say that what we should be doing is to have, and here is our suggestion, six one week sittings during the course of the year.  In February, in March, in August, September, October and November.  We need to have one three week sitting to handle the budget in April and May.  We need to sit in the afternoons and into the evenings in order to have the Legislature sitting.  We must utilise the mornings for portfolio committees to meet, and let us talk about reducing the size of the portfolio committees.  I know we talked in budgetary terms about it, but let us talk about it in terms of expertise, because if you are going to have two or three portfolio committee meetings simultaneously, which is what we should be doing, then quite frankly people must choose which one they want to attend.  Yes, it creates a problem for the smaller parties, but those are the choices we will have to make as to where we go.

Let us have only exceptional meetings and public hearings outside those sitting dates, and by agreement with the Speaker.  Let us establish a formal parliamentary link between Parliament and the Executive, not the Leader of the House who attends Cabinet meetings, but a functionary who can attend to the communications between the two.  Who can stress the importance and establish briefings for all the members of the Legislature from the Executive.  Who can create for us, Madam Speaker, information packs of the necessity of supplying us with full information from departments timeously.  I have just been writing letters to the Minister of Education complaining that at the present moment things are appearing in the newspaper before they have even come to the members in this House or the Portfolio Committee.  That is utterly unacceptable.

The whole question of the delay, and I know some departments are better than others.  Why are we getting these reports the day of the debate or one day before?  Why are we not receiving these two weeks before so that they can be studied, the departmental reports, studied and commented on?  We need to accept that legislation is going to be passed this year on the open Government and information system.  I do not know the exact title of the legislation, but Government departments are going to have to be accessible.

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  The hon member has just one minute now.

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you, Madam Speaker.  Finally, we need to review our public access.  I know particularly the hon Mrs Cronje has raised this at many Executive Board meetings and she has raised it at Whips' meetings.  We need to compile a register of NGOs and other bodies in labour, in business who are automatically contacted when sittings are held or when legislation takes place.  We need to review our building plans so that the public does have access to view the Legislature and get access to the people who they voted for.

We have had four years.  We have got one to go before the election.  Let us use the one we have in order to set in place a system that is cost effective, that makes maximum use of members' time, and efforts, and expertise, because if we do not do it then quite frankly the next Legislature will have to do it, and I think it is our job first.  Thank you.

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  Thank you.  We call upon the hon Mr Tarr.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Madam Speaker, this is the second time during the course of this sitting that we have discussed parliamentary matters.  It first took place in the Budget vote, as you will recall.

Madam Speaker, I think this is a very good and healthy thing, and I would hope that it is a practice we continue, because, as Mr Burrows points out, there certainly is room for improvement.

I wish to respond to one or two of Mr Burrows' points.  My first relates to the question of our Rules and parliamentary privilege, and the question mark that has been placed on that flowing from the De Lille case.  I think that is something which will exercise the legal minds in this Parliament and in central Parliament for some time, because there certainly are very important consequences that could flow from that.

Mr Burrows also spoke about portfolio committees.  Their role, as all members will know, is clearly spelt out in the Rules, and I do not think we need to change much as far as that is concerned.  But yes, there have been administrative problems, but more often than not there are not administrative problems.  We do need more co-operation from the Executive, and that is something which hopefully will improve in the near future.  Of course each portfolio committee clearly needs some form of a mission statement and a plan of action in which the Executive are also involved.

I support Mr Burrows' view on MINMEC.  Quite often decisions are made in MINMECs which should also be conveyed to the portfolio committees so that members are correctly informed.

Madam Speaker, there are a few other issues I wish to touch on.  The one is the National Council of Provinces.  It is quite clear, and I have said that earlier on, that this Legislature and the other Legislatures in this country are not making full use of the opportunities provided by the National Council of Provinces.  Too often we react to what happens at NCOP.  We react in NCOP to what happens in our national Assembly.  For example, they pass legislation and we arrange our meetings at NCOP, and here, to fit in with events in the Assembly.

What we need in NCOP is for the provinces to be setting their own agendas.  They need to be putting items on those agendas which affect the provinces, where the provinces can jointly decide on what is best for them.

If we look at Section 68 of the Constitution, we see that it is possible for the provinces and NCOP to introduce legislation.  We should therefore be more pro-active as a province in NCOP.  We are not making use of a golden opportunity which we have.  I suspect that MINMEC make similar opportunities available to the provinces, but unfortunately us mere members and our standing committees and portfolio committees are often not appraised of what happens in MINMEC.

Then, Madam Speaker, the next issue relates to a public participatory programme.  Quite clearly Section 118 of the Constitution makes it mandatory upon us to make public participation in parliamentary activities possible.  I am hoping that at our next Board meeting this matter will be dealt with in some detail.  We need to be looking at items like publishing our programmes, so everyone in the public knows what is happening, publishing what is happening in committees.  We need to be arranging talk shows on radio.  We need to be arranging visits to Parliament, and a whole host of other issues which I hope will be dealt with at our next Board meeting.  Hopefully, for once, instead of talking about these things, we will be in a position to do something.

Madam Speaker, another matter which has arisen during the course of this sitting, is the division of powers between the Legislature and the Executive.  Quite clearly the Constitution gives Parliament and the National Council of Provinces very clear oversight duties vis-a-vis the Executive.  All organs of State are accountable to Parliament, and Parliament must maintain an oversight.

The Executive is accountable to the Legislature, but it is quite clear that Parliament has no executive function, and it is because of perhaps the Executive intruding on parliamentary territory, or vice versa, that a tension exists.  I think in a normal situation, however, a healthy degree of tension between the Executive and the Legislature is not a bad thing.

One example which we have seen in the past week relates to the report of the Finance Committee, where the Executive feels, and I think rightly so, that some of the recommendations do intrude upon its own line function.  Arising out of this, it is probably high time that we did look to drafting some type of protocol.

Madam Speaker, I finally come to the question of the parliamentary calendar and the parliamentary work.  I do not think there is any principle disagreement between any members or parties in this House about restructuring our parliamentary calendar.  I think the idea of six one week sittings, and one three week sitting is an idea which has much merit.  It is something which we should possibly look at, and it is really a technological type of thing to schedule all the necessary meetings in the time periods involved.  I would agree with Mr Burrows that this is something we should look at and see whether we cannot implement it after the recess in July, and do our best to conform to such a programme.

Madam Speaker, with those few brief words, I would like to, on behalf of the IFP, support the motion which Mr Burrows has brought to us today.  It is good and it is healthy that we ourselves should discuss how we function.  We should be honest about where there are problems, and we should be honest about our weaknesses.  However, let me just conclude by saying, Madam Speaker, that in four years we have come a long way.  I think our Parliament functions well.  As far as the other provinces are concerned, we do not have to stand back for anybody.  We have done rather well in this House, despite some of the problems which have been raised today.  Thank you, Madam Speaker.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  Thank you, sir, for saving us a few minutes.  We call upon the hon Mrs C M Cronje, for seven minutes, Madam.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Thank you, Madam Speaker.  I agree with a lot of the issues raised by the hon Mr Burrows, and I also dealt with many of those issues in the debate on the Parliamentary budget vote.  So I will not repeat myself on the issues that I have already pronounced on.

There is one thing that worries me.  Not one of us has a principle difference with the kinds of issues raised.  In fact these things, as Mr Burrows has said, have been raised repeatedly over a four year period in the Executive Board.  Agreement has been reached on them, but it is the lack of follow through on the part of the administration that is of major concern to me.

One notable example is video conferencing.  Another notable example.  What do you call these things?  Not cell phones.

AN HON MEMBER:  Pagers!

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Sorry, pagers.  I can give you many examples where the Executive Board is ad idem.  We all agree, and there is no follow through.  I think that is something that needs to be addressed very, very seriously.

I want to introduce one or two additional items.  The one is the smoking policy for this Parliament.  I did table a motion recently.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Unfortunately some of the worst offenders, namely the hon Mr Hamilton and the hon John Jeffery from my very own caucus are not here, but I do see one or two other offenders.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  I have the document that set out the smoking policy for National Parliament.  As a member of the Joint Rules Committee - that is the NCOP and the National Assembly Joint Rules Committee, Mr Tarr and I were a party to the adoption of this.  Well, they call it a smoking policy, I would like to call it a non-smoking policy.

I will be brief.  Just for the interest of members:  At national level members may smoke in their own offices, and visitors may smoke in members' offices if the members agree to it.  Visitors and guests may only smoke in an office where the resident grants permission.  Smoking is not permitted in offices shared by two people if one of them objects to it.

The very interesting thing is that at National Assembly - and I think by now most of you have been to National Assembly and you have an idea of the architecture of the place - they have set aside the following areas:  Two courtyards next to the National Assembly, the courtyard opposite the old Assembly, the area outside the NCOP exit leading to the garden, and all bars including the press bar and the members' bar.  Now, what is interesting about it, is that these are all open air places, with the notable exception of the bars.  I think we could follow a similar thing.

Then the other thing, and I am very sorry my dear friend John Jeffery is not here today, is that National Parliament also has a special paragraph on assistance with breaking the smoking habit.  It states, and it is signed by the Secretary to Parliament:

		Parliament will, to the extent that it is able, assist members and staff to break the habit of smoking.

I think we should also take note of that.  This is one issue that I will definitely bring to the Executive Board, and I hope that the Speaker, will very soon, make a ruling on this.

I come now to the next issue.  We have spoken very little about the recycling programme that we have at Parliament.  We have taken the initiative and the Executive Board approved of it to start a recycling programme.  I wonder how many members are actually diligently recycling.  I think that would also be a very good thing.  I mean, really, in the past two weeks I have received an entire rain forest on my desk.

AN HON MEMBER:  The National Party is being recycled every day.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  We should actually recycle very diligently, but, and this is the big but, it does not mean that we must now waste paper so that we have more to recycle just so that we can get more money for our party.  Members would be interested to know - and I made enquiries about it this morning -we have now got approximately R425 from recycled paper.  We thought that we could use this at the end of the year, either for a party for members and staff, or, if we feel that is not appropriate, something that will benefit everybody, like a coffee machine or something like that.  So we have got R425, but I am not advocating the waste of paper so that we can have a bigger party, please.

Take envelopes that we receive.  Every day I receive at least 10 envelopes.  A notice has gone to members to return those envelopes to the administration.  They can re-use those same envelopes.  I diligently give mine to the office bearer's secretary and I hope some of the envelopes that find their way back to me are the ones that I have already seen once or twice or ten times.

Unfortunately they look very squeakily clean and remarkably new to me.  So please, let us make sure that we do actually implement that.

As for the programme, I agree with all the comments made.  We have grappled with this issue, as everybody will know.  It is a bit of a nightmare, but we will look at it once again, and do the very best that we can.

I now come to the oversight role of Parliament.  I think this is a matter that we cannot stress enough in this House.  We must stress it.  In this very same sitting, and I say it with respect to the hon Premier, we saw an instance where there was clearly not a full acceptance and understanding of that division or separation of powers.  When the Finance Committee - on which the IFP have a majority of members, because they are the majority party - tabled its report the Premier saw fit to jump up and dispute aspects of that report.  That to me is a very, very clear illustration of where that concept or notion was not fully understood, or if it was fully understood, then disregarded and that is regrettable.  I do not have time to elaborate on that.

I must mention that I am very pleased to see that the Secretary to our Legislature as the accounting officer is in the House today, because it did worry all of us that during the budget vote on this Legislature the Secretary was absent.  I am pleased to see that he is here to at least hear some of the comments, and I would recommend to the Secretary to read the full text of the budget speeches on the vote regarding Parliament.

In conclusion, there are seven parties in this Legislature.  It seems to me that soon we will only be six, because it seems to me that the old National Party is now becoming defunct.  Sorry, Madam Speaker, I have got a bit of a throat infection.

AN HON MEMBER:  You are starting to croak.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  The old National Party is becoming defunct, and soon we will have the new National Party, because the DP is now being taken over by the NATS.  [LAUGHTER]  The old NATS are going to the DP, so we will have six parties.

MR R M BURROWS:  INTERJECTION.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  The DP will fall away, the National Party will fall away, and we will call the DP the New National Party.  Thank you, Madam Speaker.  [LAUGHTER]

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  I want to thank the Chief Whips, both of them, for saving time.  I am now calling on the hon Mrs C Mkhize, who has got 10 minutes.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  Madam Speaker, as parliamentarians, we have been entrusted with some responsibilities.  Responsibilities to represent our people out there.  Responsibilities to govern this Province.  In order for us to fulfil these responsibilities, we in this chamber must be fully involved in the provincial parliamentary activities.  We must be able to obtain all the information from the National Parliament through the relevant structures, namely the NCOP and MINMEC.

Funds are quite limited during this financial year, to be utilised in this Parliament for activities.  There is no way that we can sit down, mourn and do nothing.  Life must go on.  Work must be done.

In order for us to achieve this goal of representing our people out there, we must strategise and make use of the very little funds we have, effectively and efficiently.  Proper planning must be done.  This must be done by involving representatives from all the political parties and parliamentary officials.  Proportional representation must also be considered when planning these structures.  We must do this despite the fact that this Province has never been refunded for the funds that were used in running the NCOP during the last financial year.

I am quite happy that the Secretary is back, and we are really pleased that he is better now.  I must commend the staff that is working with him through very difficult conditions, where there is such limited funds.

In order for us to fulfil our people's needs out there, it is essential to support the motion put across by the hon Mr Burrows of the DP.  I thank you, Madam Speaker.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  It appears that Friday is a very funny day indeed.  Speeches are very short.  We call upon the hon member Mr V A Volker for six minutes.  The four has been changed to six.  Thank you.

MR V A VOLKER:  Madam Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity.  What has become clear is that when we discuss issues there can be broad agreement, but when there is reference to party politics then it also became evident that the hon member Mrs Ina Cronje, her voice started croaking.  [LAUGHTER]

AN HON MEMBER:  Like you are going to croak too.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR V A VOLKER:  Madam Speaker, on behalf of the National Party, we support this motion and we particularly support the formation of a small multiparty committee to restructure the parliamentary calendar, and to make better use of members' time and expertise.

Let me state, first of all, that there has been an improvement.  Over the four years there has been a distinct improvement, but there is room for more improvement.  I believe that it is essential that we address that without introducing party politics, but that we discuss the more efficient running of Parliament as an institution which is intended to promote parliamentary democracy.

Mention has been made in the debate on the budget vote, and also in this debate on the question of structuring sittings of Parliament in a proper way, that a proper calendar should be prepared.  I believe personally one matter where there is still a considerable weakness is in the handling of questions.  In the agenda of questions, there should be a regular agenda indicating what questions have been put and have not yet been replied to, so that there is clarity.  If questions are outstanding for three to four weeks, or even longer, then there is some problem within the department or with the Minister's handling of that department.

I believe that there should be a better structuring of legislation.  At the moment we have a problem with only, as the Premier has indicated, one senior advocate certifying legislation.  There should be a better structuring.  That is the task of the Leader of the House, to co-ordinate this with the Cabinet, for the staff to handle it properly.

Madam Speaker, I personally believe in the system of constituency representation.  Members of Parliament do not only have a task in Parliament.  They also have a specific task to represent the interests of constituents.  I was first elected to this House as a provincial councillor in 1965, and then to Parliament in 1966.  I come from the school of representing the interests of the people, irrespective of party political support.  I believe that if a person is elected for an area for the people of that area, his duty is to represent all those interests.  Something could be done to provide for a better representation of the interests of the people, and not merely to represent party politics, or political parties in this House.  That is an issue for another debate that one could have in this House.

The situation, as we have it now, that these motions are limited to one hour.  By limiting discussions on the various votes, and by limiting the discussions on various debates and motions, to one hour, we are not doing justice to the actual principle of Parliament and that is promoting parliamentary democracy.  The minority parties, or the opposition parties in the parliamentary sense, are so restricted in the time allocation that it is not conducive to a proper debate, a proper contribution and input from the wealth of knowledge that is within all these parties.  We have only one hour, and there is a proportional allocation of time, minority parties or opposition parties are severely restricted.  I believe the consideration of allowing more time for debate, more time for proper input should be considered.

It would be advisable to make available more research assistance, on the one hand, to the portfolio committees, but also on the other hand, to political parties.  Research assistance is not always totally neutral, it is in terms of a specific point of view.  In Parliament in Cape Town, political parties are given researchers in various spheres, but here it is not the case.  I believe that at Provincial Legislature level there is room for improvement in that sphere as well.

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  The hon member is left with two minutes.

MR V A VOLKER:  Thank you very much.  Parliament as an institution is supposed to promote democratic debate, and democratic debate is not promoted if you merely have a political wrangling.  It means proper research in preparation for the factual inputs that can be made, and it is not always possible for members to have that in the time that is available to them.

I appreciate the workshops that are being offered.  I understand, by overseas funding for conflict resolution, time management, legislative procedures, shorthand and speed reading, speech writing and communication, but what is missing there, I believe, is that there is no effort to promote computer literacy.  Members of Parliament, these days, have to be computer literate in order to do their work effectively and efficiently.  I believe provision should be made for that as well, and to make available facilities that will enable members to deal with that.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR V A VOLKER:  Madam Speaker, let me wind up by saying, that I again wish to state that when we deal with issues we can agree broadly on matters.  It is only when we deal with party politics of a more petty nature that there is a real wrangling.  In the interests of this Province and in the interests of this Legislature we should be given more time to deal with specific issues where we can co-operate on those issues.

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  We now call upon the hon member Mr F Dlamini for six minutes.  Thank you.

MR F DLAMINI:  Thank you, Madam Speaker.  When you advised the House that the hon Mr Volker has now six minutes instead of four, I thought you had taken two of mine.  In any case, I am quite willing to give two or three.

The hon Mr Volker has said that there seems to be no effort made towards providing computer literacy.  He was probably absent from this House about three days ago when I mentioned that provision has been made for computer literacy according to our Training and Development programme.  As soon as we get our laptops, we will start with computer literacy.

Madam Speaker, time is a rare commodity, but we must admit that time management has not been the forte of this Legislature.  For this we have only ourselves to blame.  Perhaps the absence of a lot of members from the chamber is indicative of that weakness in time management, and we are hoping that the courses that have been laid on, on time management on 9 June and 23 June will be attended by most of our members here, because failure to manage your time makes you to do wrong things at the wrong time.  You are often absent from where you are expected to be at any given time.

May I advise the hon Mrs Millin, that I cannot talk about the legacy of the past in respect of time management because I do not know whether their time management was up to scratch or not in the erstwhile Government.

Madam Speaker, infrequent parliamentary sittings project us as people who do not have much to do.  It is true most committees meet regularly, but these are not in the public record, and therefore to the public we appear to be a Legislature that is doing very little.

If committee meetings were to be held during parliamentary sittings a lot of savings would be made, as it has already been mentioned by the hon Mr Burrows.  This would expand public interest and participation.

These issues are, however, not new in our discussions.  They have been discussed at the Parliamentary Executive Board, and as far as I can recall, a small multiparty committee was established to restructure the parliamentary calendar.  I therefore recommend that the suggestions made by the hon Mr Burrows be implemented, or else we will begin to sound like a stuck record.

When my colleague, the hon Mrs Cronje, mentioned the implementation and that the administration is not driving the process, I noticed the body language of the Secretary that there is no money.  I think a lot of these things could be implemented without really saying where is the money going to come from.  After all, if it is a question of money, then some adjustments should be made in the budgets in order to cater for the implementation of the things that have been recommended.

Madam Speaker, I would like to support the motion that has been presented by the hon Mr Burrows.

THE ACTING SPEAKER:  Thank you, sir.  You have really been true to your word.  Thank you.  We now call upon the hon member Mr W Nel for 10 minutes.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Madam Speaker.  The hon Mr Dlamini referred to the fact that time is a valuable commodity and we dare not waste it.  Indeed it is true that life is not a dress rehearsal, and what we waste is lost forever.  It is important for us in this House, as a democratic structure of the people, to lead by example.

We have often said from these benches that we have done a remarkable job in KwaZulu-Natal, even though we sometimes get very bad publicity.  We have actually done a very good job of exposing what is wrong and talking about it, but we are often very short on action.

It is the essence of democratic Government that people, members of the public, such as us, eventually get elected to a House such as this where we are called upon to represent the interests of the public, as the hon member Mr Volker pointed out.  We are called upon to ensure that Government does with the public's money what best serves the interests of the public.  We must remember that there is no such thing as Government money.  It is only taxpayers' money.  It is only workers' money.  The people's money, and it is incumbent on us to make sure that it is well used.  We must never underestimate the power and the importance of this Parliament, even in an imperfect federal system or Constitution with imperfect devolution of powers such as ours.  Even in that system Provincial Parliaments, such as this, fulfil an immensely important role.

If nothing else, Madam, we are charged with passing a budget of some R17,5 billion this year, the purpose of which is to deliver to the people.  We must not forget that ultimately this House must account for the deployment of some 180 000 provincial civil servants.  We must account for the money we spend on them, and we must account for the service that those people render.

Whilst it is true that the Provincial Cabinet runs the Executive arm of Government, and we must not confuse the Executive arm with the Legislative arm, it is also true that the Executive can only continue to function whilst it enjoys the support of the majority of the members of this House.

Parliamentary debate and parliamentary question times are immensely important.  It is quite unacceptable that we end up in a situation, such as earlier this week when, during a question time, where members of the Executive are not here.  We complain that there is inadequate communication between the Legislature and the Executive, and in the very hour of this sitting that the most direct interaction takes place, the Executive are not properly represented.  That is inexcusable and unacceptable.  We heard that they were engaged in peace talks, but with respect, those peace talks have been on and off for some four years now.  We do not deny that peace is an absolute necessity in this Province, but it did not suddenly become that vitally important in the very single hour that was set aside for a question time between members of this Legislature and the Executive.  Those things need to be put right, Madam.

Similarly, and it has been mentioned by the hon Mr Burrows and others, the cavalier way in which parliamentary sittings and meetings are scheduled, and rescheduled, and cancelled cannot be tolerated.  Nothing has frustrated me, as a member, more than this sort of on/off arrangements, and a situation where you inevitably find yourself on a kind of permanent standby.

One needs to ask the question, what would happen if Commonwealth meetings, or United Nations meetings, or those of the World Health Organisation were simply scheduled and rescheduled, and no account was taken of the interaction with nations across the globe?  It simply cannot work, and once you go down that road then the whole system gradually starts to breakdown, and members start losing interest in asking questions, because they do not know when those questions will ultimately be answered.  As soon as that happens, the whole system begins to implode.  We need to seriously and urgently revisit the issue of the workings of this House, and also the relationship between this House and the Executive, and to work on a guidebook for that relationship so that it can be formalised.

Madam Speaker, the constitutional state that we live in now.  I beg your pardon.  [LAUGHTER]  Mr Speaker, the constitutional state in which we now live has been a wonderful achievement for this country, and while some people sometimes are tempted to think that it is not working, the one thing that tells me that it has been a success is the fact that people across the face of this country, and members in this House, all walk around with that little book, the Constitution, and we read it, and we flip through it on a daily basis.

If anybody asked any of us where the old Constitution of the previous regime was kept, I doubt anyone would know where to find it, and it had very little relevance on our daily lives, because it was simply objectionable anyway.  So, sir, we have indeed made progress.  We need to make sure that in that system this House functions to its full efficiency.

We have heard complaints about the relationship, Mr Speaker, between Ministers and party members, and also between Ministers and this House.  We would like to make a plea that parties should become less sensitive to being critical of members of the Executive even when they come from their own parties.  It is not a bad thing, it is a good thing.  As was evidenced by the Finance Committee report, which was critical, not of one member of the Cabinet, but of many of them, not necessarily even directly critical of them, but raising issues where we have failed in our duty as a Government, and that is a good thing.  That healthy tension must continue, because it engenders good performance.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR W U NEL:  It is not a good thing when the Executive starts interfering in the workings of this House, and cancels debates because they are not thought to be appropriate or whatever.  I refer to a debate that was scheduled earlier this year, and I am not saying that necessarily the debate should have been allowed by the Speaker or disallowed by the Speaker, but once the Speaker has made a ruling it is incumbent upon the Executive, and all of us, to honour it.  We need to start working on that relationship so that we do not again experience what we had earlier this year.

The hon member Mrs Cronje referred to the fact that there seems to be a lack of follow through, because many of the issues we are talking about now have been raised many times before.  There have been informal arrangements to discuss it, and to try and come up with plans and so on, and then simply nothing happens.  Nothing saps the energy more than these failed attempts.  Cry wolf, and nothing happens.  The next time people raise it no one pays any attention, because we have heard it before and we know the result is no action.  We have got to address that.

Earlier there was also talk of transformation, and it was mentioned that even in the service of this House we need transformation, we need some skills transfer, we need education and training of the veritable army of people that are employed to support us.  We need to ask critically, sir, are they all  gainfully employed?  Are they all improving their skills every day, and are they all fully committed to being productive?  Because, if as a team, members of this House, and members of the Secretariat, work productively every day of the year, then certainly we will see results that we can hardly believe.

Mr Speaker, I want to just end by saying that really I think this House and its members fulfil a very valuable service.  We interact with the public, and we would be that much more productive if we did that in a structured way.  If we communicate properly with the Executive and with each other in a regular fashion, in regular sittings of the House, because then we will be informed, we will know exactly what is going on, and when we meet the public out there, which is our job, we will be able to transmit adequate and up to date information.

So our plea is, let us look at these recommendations seriously.  Let us get a committee working to try and implement this.  Let us now have the follow through, good follow through in the interests of the public.

In closing, Mr Speaker, as all parties have agreed to this motion.  We would request that it be put to this House and be referred to the Executive Board for immediate and urgent attention and action.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Nel.  That concludes the debate on the motion introduced by Mr Burrows.  I now put the motion to the House.

THE MOTION AS MOVED BY MR BURROWS - PASSED

	THAT THIS HOUSE:

	Recognising:

	1.	The responsible and vital role of its members both individually and within the various structures of the KZN Parliament;

	2.	The importance of clear distinctions between the role played by individuals, political parties, structures of Parliament and the Provincial Cabinet;

	3.	The need to make the most effective use of the available time and Parliament's human and financial resources;

	4.	The scope for NCOP and MINMEC in order to put the KZN case for an equitable share of finances and resources;

	5.	The need to expand public interest and participation in the Legislature's activities.

	THEREFORE CALLS ON THIS HOUSE:

	(a)	To form a small multiparty committee to restructure the Parliamentary calendar to make better use of members' time and expertise;

	(b)	Ensure that one parliamentary official is responsible for formal communication to and from the Executive by the Legislature and Portfolio Committees;

	(c)	To make the fullest possible use of the NCOP and MINMEC meetings to put the case of KwaZulu-Natal's fiscal, material and human resource needs;

	(d)	Ensure that an agreed guide to relations between the Legislature and the Executive is completed as soon as possible;

	(e)	Immediately proceed to compile a policy initiative on public access to the KwaZulu-Natal Parliament and to place it before the Executive Board.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  The motion is therefore now referred to the Executive Committee for implementation.  That also brings us to the end of today's business.

Before I say anything further, I just wanted to inform this House that the Ministers did take note of the complaints about their absence.  Their absence in the House now, is due to the fact that they are attending a special Cabinet meeting that has had to convene as a result of this ongoing taxi violence.  It is unfortunate that the House could not be informed in time, but that is the situation as it stands.  Government is meeting.  I hope that will clarify members' questions.

There being no further business and I do not see any Ministers on behalf of the Premier.  I therefore assume that there will not be any further announcements.  I now adjourn this House.  We will resume our sitting on Monday, 25 May at 10:30.  The House stands adjourned.

	HOUSE ADJOURNED AT 12:08 UNTIL
	10:30 ON MONDAY, 25 MAY 1998

		DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS OF
	KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE

	FIFTH SESSION
	SECOND SITTING - NINTH SITTING DAY
	MONDAY, 25 MAY 1998

THE HOUSE MET AT 10:35 IN THE LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER, PIETERMARITZBURG.  THE SPEAKER TOOK THE CHAIR AND READ THE PRAYER.

THE SPEAKER:  

2.	OBITUARIES AND OTHER CEREMONIAL MATTERS

3.	ADMINISTRATION OF OATHS OR AFFIRMATION

4.	ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE SPEAKER

I am circulating a letter received from the Independent Electoral Commission to all members present.  I received this letter on Friday afternoon.  It speaks for itself.  They want three members from this Assembly to be considered for appointment, for a number of reasons.  It is set out in the letter.  I am sure you have it now.  I request the Whips will let me know in due course what they think about it.  In the meantime I will reply to the Independent Electoral Commission.  So that is the announcement I am making.  I will in due course hear from you.

5.	ANNOUNCEMENTS AND/OR REPORT BY THE PREMIER

The hon the Premier.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker, sir.  I have no announcements.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.

6.	TABLING OF REPORTS AND/OR PAPERS

The hon Minister of Safety and Security.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Mr Speaker, I am pleased to table the annual reports for the Department of Traditional and Environmental Affairs, as well as the Department of Safety and Security.  I thank you.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  There is a report there.  The hon Premier.

7.	NOTICES OF BILLS OR MOTIONS 

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  Pardon me for entering the House late.  I was just held up outside.

THE SPEAKER:  Well, pardoned.  I am forgiving you.  You know, I am a Christian.

THE PREMIER:  I would like to move, what I hope will be an unopposed motion by the ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party on Africa Day, in this Provincial Parliament on May 25 1998.  The IFP move:

		1.	That this House recognises the significance of today being Africa Day, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Organisation for African Unity, (OAU);

		2.	That the OAU is presently working towards the realisation of the full potential of Africa so that it can at last truly be free;

		3.	That this House recognises the OAU as being the unifying centre of Africa;

		4.	That this House call upon the OAU to return to  its basic aims and objectives to unify and strengthen Africa in its fight against poverty, disease and oppression of all kinds, and to create a greater understanding between all African states;

		5.	To act as mediator between Western and African and all other kinds of governance;  and

		6.	That this House lends its support to the OAU and Africa Day.

Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE SPEAKER:  In view of it being the motion moved as an unopposed motion, I should put it to the House right away.  Yes, sir?

MR J G ZUMA: (Minister of Economic Affairs and Tourism):  Mr Speaker, could I make an amendment on the motion before we fully support it. 

I would want to just make a small amendment, if the Premier agrees, then the motion can really become unanimous.

AN HON MEMBER:  We do not agree.

THE SPEAKER:  The Premier is happy to allow that to happen.

MR J G ZUMA: (Minister of Economic Affairs and Tourism):  On point No 4 where it says:

		That this House call upon the OAU to return to its basic aims ...

Instead to read:

		That this House call upon the OAU to continue with its basic aims ...

Where there could be a debate whether it has diverted or not.

We could then debate the motion.  But I think if we said, "to continue with its basic aims", then I will have no problem with the motion.  I could say something about 5, but I do not think it is fundamental.  I was going to say we could delete that, but I am not necessarily hard and fast on it.  If we had the time I could have said we could rephrase it in a different way as well, but it has just been read now.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Speaker?

THE SPEAKER:  Oh yes, Mr Schutte.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Speaker, in order for this motion to be adopted by unanimous approval, I would submit, and we support the spirit of this motion, but I would propose a further amendment, that that be read: "that the OAU continue promoting the interests of all the people of Africa".  Then I think there cannot be any question, any debate about this matter.

THE SPEAKER:  In that event I will put it to the Premier to accept or reject the suggested amendments, in order to make it unanimous.  The hon Premier.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I think actually we will accept "continue" instead of "return", and of course we will accept "protecting all the people of this continent", because those are very noble objectives.  I do not think there is a problem.

THE SPEAKER:  Regarding Mr Schutte's?

THE PREMIER:  Well, protecting all the people of Africa.  It is quite logical and acceptable.

THE SPEAKER:  Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Ja, Mr Speaker, in view of the fact that it was moved by the hon Premier, slightly amended by Minister Zuma, and in view of the fact that two leaders are committed to real unity and peace in this Province, we support this.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE SPEAKER:  In that event, I will call upon the Premier to put the motion as amended and accepted before the House.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you.  The IFP to move:

		1.	That this House recognises the significance of today being Africa Day, commemorating the 35th anniversary of the OAU;

		2.	That the OAU is presently working towards the realisation of the full potential of Africa so that it can at last truly be free;

		3.	That this House recognises the OAU as being the unifying centre of Africa;

		4.	That this House call upon the OAU to continue with its basic aims and objectives to unify, as well as protecting all the people of Africa to unify, strengthen and protect all its people in its fight against poverty, disease and oppression of all kinds, and to create a greater understanding between all African states;

		5.	To act as mediator between Western and African and all other kinds of governance;

		6.	That this House lends its support to the OAU and Africa Day.

This is how we move, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  That is the motion put forward by the Premier, as amended.  I thought Mr Nel was raising an issue.  Be that as it may, I now put this motion to the House, as amended, by the Premier.

THE MOTION AS MOVED BY THE PREMIER DR B S NGUBANE - PASSED

THE SPEAKER:  The motion is accepted unanimously.  Thank you, Mr Premier.  The hon Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Yes, I have two motions, one without notice.  I will read it out:

It be resolved that:

		this House wishes BAFANA BAFANA, OUR NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM, WELL IN ITS WARM-UP MATCH AGAINST the former world champions, ARGENTINA, TONIGHT.

And only a traitor will oppose me.  [LAUGHTER]

THE SPEAKER:  I am sure Mr Rajbansi does not mean that that last portion of his sentence to be included in the motion.  If that were to be the case then it will be unparliamentary to call people traitors.  I will not allow that to happen.  I will therefore take it that, Mr Rajbansi read his motion.  It does not include that last part of his statement.  Is that it?  Oh good.  Therefore I will again, put the unopposed motion as proposed by Mr Rajbansi to the House.

THE MOTION AS MOVED BY MR RAJBANSI - PASSED

THE SPEAKER:  Well, there are no traitors in the House.  Thank you, Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Right, I have got a notice, Mr Speaker.  I hereby give notice that I shall move tomorrow in this hon House as follows:

		That this House is very gravely concerned about the crime situation in our country especially when there is a heavy reliance on the South African Police Services to protect the lives and the properties of the citizens.

		That it also be noted with concern that the morale of the citizens as well as those in the Police establishment is fast declining because of allegations regarding nepotism and racism in the SAPS on matters relating to promotion, etcetera and the regular reports about the involvement of policemen in committing crime and also the very high rate and stress in the Police Force.

		Recently it was alleged that senior policemen from Chatsworth may have been accomplices in the great R31 million SVB robbery.

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  Mr Speaker, just a point of order.  I believe it is a substantive motion being put forward, but a speech is being made on the motion at the moment.  I believe the use of these motions are being abused in this House, and I would like you to listen carefully, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Yes, Mr Rajbansi, take note of what the ...

MR A RAJBANSI:  Yes, I am not going to be like a party who says, "Hang the killers, hang the rapists", but they have a convicted killer as a candidate.

AN HON MEMBER:  Yes.

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!

MR A RAJBANSI:  I will not expand on the humiliation of his party.  They can be so humiliated....

THE SPEAKER:  Will the hon member please read his motion.  This is not a time for a discussion.

MR A RAJBANSI:  I shall continue.

		Matters have now come to a head in the Chatsworth area with the recent arrests of senior policemen from Chatsworth in another SVB robbery.  While matters are sub judice the community's concerns should not be ignored.

		Therefore it be resolved to request the hon Minister of Safety and Security to immediately restructure the establishment at stations where policemen are allegedly committing crimes and where there are serious allegations of nepotism and racism.

I will not refer to the past, to save the person who interjected me from further humiliation.  [LAUGHTER]

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Rajbansi.  That is the end of your motion.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Speaker, I crave your indulgence.  He passed some comments, he disturbed me.  He knows he is dealing with an experienced politician.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

MR A RAJBANSI:  I will belittle them in the debate.

THE SPEAKER:  No, this is not the time to discuss these matters. I will ask the hon member to take his seat.  Thank you.  Any further motions.  Mr Ngema.

MR M V NGEMA:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day I shall move as follows:
	
	NOTING:	

	1.	that a distinguished member of this House, the hon I C Meer has lauded the Premier, Dr B S Ngubane, for his statesmanship, dignity, and wise leadership;

	2.	that the hon Premier has been widely acclaimed for his vision and tireless efforts in the service of all the people of this Province and in South Africa in general;

	3.	that the executive authority of the Province is vested in the Premier in terms of section 125(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and that he is charged with good governance of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.

		FURTHER NOTING:

		that the hon Mr Dumisani Makhaye, a member of the African National Congress has stated in writing on behalf of the African National Congress, that the hon Premier is unintelligent.

		that the hon Mr Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ANC in this Province has said that the hon Premier is in need of "re-education"; and

		further noting that the hon Mr J S Ndebele, the Deputy Leader of the ANC in this Province has called the hon Premier a "Janus";

		This House therefore calls on the hon Mr I C Meer to use his undoubted influence within the ANC to ensure that the Premier's dignity is not impaired by delinquent behaviour on the part of his ANC colleagues in this House.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

AN HON MEMBER:  Well done.

THE SPEAKER:  Order please!  It is obvious that this cannot be an unopposed motion.  It will go down as such.  I am afraid I must give a chance to the gentleman at the back, over there, before Mr Meer.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Mr Speaker, I hereby give notice that I will move on the next sitting day of this House:

	That this House taking note of:

	(a)	The SACP leader and ANC MP, Mr Jeremy Cronin's public statements that the ANC has lost touch with people at ground level;

	(b)	That there is massive disillusionment growing amongst voters in the ANC Government because of unkept election promises, rampant crime and corruption, escalating unemployment, failure of education and health services and general incompetence of the ANC Government; and

	(c)	That the said disillusionment has now been reflected in the Markinor survey which indicates a drop in support for the ANC from 58% to 54% in only six months and the more recent DPA Africa survey conducted in the Durban Metro area which indicated a drop in support for the ANC from 50,4% to 26,4%.

		This House now:

		calls on the ANC Government to continue governing the country in the incompetent way they have, because that will certainly result in further loss of support to the ANC to below 50% which will be in the very best interest of the country.

I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Speaker, I make an application for a ruling, by you on that motion.

THE SPEAKER:  Mr Rajbansi, can you please repeat yourself?

MR A RAJBANSI:  Yes, because we are promoting good governance.  I am not dealing with competency or incompetency of any party, but that motion suggests that we must ask the Government to continue to be incompetent.  We cannot promote incompetency.  Therefore I make an application for you to rule that motion out of order.

MRS O E FORD:  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. 

THE SPEAKER:  Yes, on a point of order.

THE SPEAKER:  Yes, you may proceed.

MRS O E FORD:  Thank you.  I would like to ask you whether this is not degenerating into a political debate or whether we are hearing motions, sir?

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you very much.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE SPEAKER:  Order please!  This is not the time to debate motions, whether they be favourable or unfavourable.  Therefore the motion stands as it is.  There will be ample time when the motions are discussed, to discuss this.  That is all I can say.  So we stop the debate completely.  I thought that the hon members were moving unopposed motions.  It is clear from what they said, that there is no unopposed motion.  A motion cannot be discussed immediately.  It is out of the question.

MR S J GCABASHE:  Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Yes.

MR S J GCABASHE:  I raised my hand when the speaker that proposed that motion was still on the floor.  I wanted to correct him, because he has made a misleading statement.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR V A VOLKER:  No, Mr Speaker, no.

THE SPEAKER:  I ask the hon member to take his seat.  There will be no discussion on this motion.  I am sorry, I have already ruled that discussion on the motion is not going to take place now.  You are referring to a motion that has not been put forward as an unopposed motion.  There will be ample time when the motions are discussed to oppose and correct it.  Two unopposed motions have been put to the House.  That is why there were amendments.  I request the hon member to take his seat.  I cannot allow him to discuss this matter any more.  Please, any further motions?  Yes, the hon member.

MRS J M DOWNS:  Mr Speaker, I shall move on the next sitting day:

		This House, noting that child abuse is rising at the rate of 36% per annum:

		1.	Calls upon this House to attend to the Children's Commissioner Bill and pass it without delay.

		2.	Do all that it can to promote education and other preventative measures.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mrs Downs.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  Mr Speaker, I shall move on the next sitting day:

	That this House wishes to congratulate the DP for increasing its support by more than 100%, from 2% to 5%.  The DP, according to the Markinor report, has increased its support more than 100%, from 2% to 5%, and wishes to commiserate with the IFP for losing its support from 44% to 21%, and also to note that this country can be ruled perfectly by a 54% majority.

I thank you.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  What about the PAC that has tripled its support?  [LAUGHTER]

THE SPEAKER:  That settles the issue of these motions.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, I do not wish to move a motion, but I think it may just have been a slip of the tongue on your part, but the only unopposed motion here this morning was the one moved by the hon Premier as amended.  The others were just normal motions.  An impression may have been created that there were more.  Oh sorry, I apologise, and the Bafana's one.  I am sorry.  The others were just normal motions.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  That is correct.  The others were normal motions.  There were only two motions which were put to this House and accepted unanimously.  Those were the only two motions.  The other motions were ordinary motions.  I see the Minister of Transport is not happy about that.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  No, mine commiserates with the IFP.

THE SPEAKER:  No, I will rule that is not one of the unopposed motions.  Mr Volker, please.

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Speaker, just for the correct notification.  It was not motions that were introduced, it was notices of motion that were given.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Now there are no further notices of motion under 7.

8.	ORDERS OF THE DAY
	
	8.1	COMMITTEE STAGE : VOTE 9 (SAFETY AND SECURITY)

THE SPEAKER:  The House will resolve into the Committee of Supply whereupon I will call Mr Dlamini to take the chair for the Committee of Supply.  I will now leave the chair. 

THE HOUSE RESOLVED INTO A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE.
MR F DLAMINI THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES TAKES THE CHAIR

KWAZULU-NATAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1998.

VOTE 9: THE DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY AND SECURITY

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The Committee of Supply resumes.  Before we commence with our business, I would like to note that this House started on a very lively note this morning, but all the same, I would like to make a special request that in the interest of progress let us maintain the maturity and respectability of this House in the debates.

I would also like to announce that there have been some changes or adjustments to the speakers' list.  Mr Burrow's place will be taken by the hon Mr Nel.  If you could correct that.  ~Inkosi~ Mdletshe's place will be taken by the hon Mr Rehman.  These changes have been signed by all the Whips.  Without any further waste of time, I would like to call upon the hon ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, the Minister of Safety and Security to present his report.  Over to you, Minister.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  

INTRODUCTION

Mr Chairperson, hon members of the House.  Democracy in South Africa has faced many threats in the past, but none so insidious as the culture of lawlessness and criminality that, at this precise moment threatens the hard earned freedoms and rights protected in our Constitution.

For this reason, it has became essential that all Government departments and relevant authorities - at national, provincial and local level - band together in a concordant and committed drive to constitute, foster and safeguard a secure environment for all our citizens.

Ensuring acceptable levels of safety and security is not only crucial for the survival of our newly found democracy, but a sacred duty towards the people of KwaZulu-Natal who have entrusted us to protect them and their property.

The sacrifices of many South Africans have culminated in the establishment of a non-racial democratic Government at national, provincial and local level.  However, while political violence has to a great degree been stabilised, the transition to democracy has seen levels of crime which impairs economic activity, investment, tourism, development and job creation.

While the levels of crime in this Province has admittedly shown encouraging signs of retreating before the onslaught of the South African Police Service, the malignant impact of anti-social behaviour is still a source of great concern for all law-abiding citizens.  Crime reduces the health, welfare and quality of life of our citizens, while violent crimes create fear and undermines individual and collective freedoms and rights enshrined in our Constitution.

CRIME AND VIOLENCE

Mr Chairperson, and hon members of this House, in submitting the Annual Report of the South Africa Police Service for the Province, allow me to draw the attention of the House to certain key areas.

The annual report is presented in three components:

PART ONE  -  reflects on the methodology used to manage crime during 1997 and details the forums responsible for crime management.

PART TWO  -  is a statistical overview and analysis of crime in the Province.  Mr Chairperson, please indulge me when I draw the attention of the House to two matters of grave concern.  These are robbery and attacks on farms and smallholdings.

The hijacking of trucks and cash-in-transit heists shows a disconcerting increase compared to the previous year, I mean 1996.  However, the Province experienced a heartening 51,8% decrease in the incidence of bank robberies compared to matching figures for 1996, while burglaries of businesses dropped by more than 6% since 1994.

Attacks on farms and smallholdings increased from 111 incidents in 1996 to 163 incidents last year, which is 1997.  During these attacks, 48 people lost their lives and 45 people were injured.  To stem similar attacks in future, a rural safety plan has been implemented and the Provincial Crime Prevention Committee has established a working group to neutralise violence in rural areas.

Mr Chairperson, and the hon House, another area of importance is the inspiring reduction in taxi related crimes.  During 1996, a total of 108 people lost their lives in taxi related incidents, compared to a death toll of only 57 people in 1997, a notable reduction of 47% during 1996, 144 taxi related incidents were reported as opposed to 54 incidents in 1997.

You will remember, Mr Chairperson, that last Thursday we met with the hon Minister of Transport together with the Department of Police, his Department and also the Taxi Task Team with the aim to address these volatile situations of the taxi industry in our Province.

PART THREE  -  deals with:

1.	Pro-active policing, which includes the various components of the South African Police Service tasked with the prevention of crime, the maintenance of law and order, the preservation of the internal security of the Province, as well as community policing.

2.	Re-active policing, which includes the Detective Services, Specialised Investigation Units and General Investigation Services.

I wish to draw the attention of this House to certain policing achievements.

R4,6 million in counterfeit South African currency and R115 million worth of illegally imported garments were seized during 1997.  Project Sentinel, comprising Coast Patrol Units from Richards Bay and Durban, as well as the Transnational Trade Detection and Investigation Unit, successfully detected transnational crimes exceeding R20 million.

The Public Order Policing Unit provided security at no less than 1 500 gatherings and meetings and recovered 1 680 illegal firearms in the course of their duties.  The Special Task Force was involved in 108 high risk operations, while police divers undertook 114 underwater searches.  

The Government Fraud Team has seen 159 cases being brought to court and an Internet Website for commercial crime has also been established.

As far as organised crime is concerned it is noteworthy that several crime syndicates have been effectively squashed.  These include vehicle theft syndicates and drug gangs.  KwaZulu-Natal also made history by arresting the Phoenix serial killer in a world record time of only six weeks.

I have also appended, for the information of the House, a table depicting a higher incidence of specific crimes per 100 000 of the population than the RSA average.  This table reflects KwaZulu-Natal in relation to other provinces for the past year 1997.  You can refer to annexure "A" of my budget speech.

Mr Chairperson, despite a 24% drop in attacks on security forces, several police officers lost their lives during the execution of their duties in 1997.  We acknowledge their unselfish commitment to the maintenance of a safe and secure environment for all the inhabitants of the Province and we of course, honour their memory.

PROVINCIAL SECRETARIAT FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY

AIM OF THE SECRETARIAT

The objectives of the Provincial Secretariat are to enable the MEC for Safety and Security to:

1.	Direct the Provincial Police Service in the establishment of the Community Police Forums.

2.	Monitor police conduct.

3.	Oversee the effectiveness and efficiency of the Police Service.

4.	Promote good relations between the police and the community.

5.	Assess the effectiveness of visible policing; and liaise with the Cabinet member responsible for policing with respect to crime and policing in the Province.

BUDGET SUMMARY

The budget summary is indicated under budget allocation.

BUDGET ALLOCATION

The 1998/1999 allocation for vote 9, South African Police Service, of R1,078 million is 66,22% lower than the 1997/1998 allocation of R3,191 million.

This reduction is bound to have an adverse effect on certain items such as personnel appointments that cannot be effected, and the Secretariat will have to meet its constitutional and statutory requirements with the present personnel component.  The reduced allocation will also impact negatively on basic service delivery.

AMOUNT ALLOCATED : 1998/1999
R1 078 000 (Excl Minister's salary)
AMOUNT VOTED : 1997/1998
R3 191 000 (Incl Minister's salary
INCREASE/(DECREASE)
(R2 113 000)
SUSPENDED : 1997/1998
R1 401 000

The statutory amount is included in the suspension because the Minister of Safety and Security also holds the portfolio of Environmental and Traditional Affairs that includes the said amounts.

PROGRAMME
97/98 ALLOCAT-ION
97/98 SUSPEND-ED
98/99 ALLOCA-TION
INCREASE (DECREASE)
1. ADMINISTRATION
R1 195 000  
R330 000
R31 000
(R1 164 000)
2. CIVILIAN SECRETARIAT
R1 651 000
R1 071 000
R1 047 000
(R604 000)
STATUTORY AMOUNT
R345 000


(R345 000)

R3 191 000

R1 078 000
(R2 113 000)
3. REGIONAL PEACE DIRECTORATE FUNDS SUSPENDED: VOTE 1 TO VOTE 9 WEF 1 APRIL 1998


R3 315 000


No statutory amount has been allocated in vote 9 for 1998/1999

(For itemised detail of allocated budget you will just consider annexure "B" at the end of the budget speech).


COMMUNITY POLICING

Mr Chairperson, a common understanding shared by people all over the world is that for any project or programme to succeed, that project or programme must be owned by the people it serves.  Community policing forums must in essence be owned by the community so that the community can and will accept co-responsibility for safety and security in this Province.  It is therefore necessary to remove barriers to community control, and organised committees must be encouraged to take control of these forums.

Success should not be sought in re-active governance, but in enabling and empowering communities to solve their own problems.

As elected members of this House, we have a duty to establish an effective network of inter-related institutions to unleash the necessary resources to win the war against crime.  The absence and scarcity of resources has left my Department unable to meet our statutory obligations in this regard.  However, Mr Chairperson, in spite of this, an Interim Provincial Community Police Board was established on October 11, 1997, and a delegation from the Board as well as my Department attended a provincial summit held in Bloemfontein from October 20 to 22, 1997.  At present my Department is engaged in a survey to establish the effectiveness of community policing which forms part of a national survey undertaken by the National Department of Safety and Security.

NATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGY (NCPS)

A KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Crime Prevention Summit was held in Durban from November 24 - 25 1997.  Emanating from this summit a Provincial Crime Prevention Task Team was established to correlate the proposals of the summit into a programme of action.  The committee has established working groups to co-ordinate the key areas of:

*	Urban crime prevention
*	Violence in rural areas
*	Youth, both as victims and perpetrators
*	Violence against women
*	Community involvement; and
*	Victim empowerment.

The working groups are presently engaged in conducting a provincial audit in these key areas.

PEACE COMMITTEE

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Peace Committee has met on nine occasions in the past year.  Members of the Peace Committee have also attended to several potential conflict situations in areas such as Mandeni, ~Umlazi~, Babanango, Inchanga and Richmond just to name a few.  For this, the House and I have only the highest regard.  The Peace Directorate has conducted several projects, which includes:

STAFF TRAINING WORKSHOPS

*	Communication skills
*	Report writing
*	Development training - life skills programme

SPECIAL PROJECTS

*	World Council of Churches - "Peace City"
*	Peace Awards - Peace Day
*	Food Relief - ~Umlazi~ and KwaMashu

DEVELOPMENT

*	Hopewell Farm near Ixopo.  There was a water pump project.
*	Hlokozi Development Committee.  There was capacity training.
*	KwaMashu Youth Community Advancement Workshop.
*	Bruntville, there was a housing repairs project.

LOCAL PEACE COMMITTEE

Local Peace Committees function in the following areas:

*	~Umlazi~
*	Durban South
*	Hillcrest
*	Port Shepstone
*	Stanger
*	Empangeni
*	Newcastle
*	Pietermaritzburg

These Committees have also met on a regular basis.

PROVINCIAL PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE FOR SAFETY AND SECURITY

The Portfolio Committee continues to play an active role in matters pertaining to safety and security in this Province, and has on numerous occasions accompanied me to flash points.  I am of course indeed indebted to them.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Mr Chairperson, I wish to draw the attention of the House to a singular very important matter with regard to safety and security which will require our attention in the coming months.

The Green Paper for Safety and Security issued in 1994 set out a basic policy guide for the transformation of the Department of Safety and Security.  Since then a number of policy programmes have been initiated to bring the activities of the Department in line with the Constitution and the needs of a democratic society.

To consolidate these programmes and set the policy frameworks for the next five years, the Minister of Safety and Security approved the development of a White Paper in June 1997.  Recommendations and reports received were integrated and released for discussion by internal stakeholders on November 10, 1997.

Feedback from the internal stakeholders was incorporated into the fourth draft White Paper.  After Cabinet approval, the draft White Paper will be released for consultation.

Mr Chairman, a fundamental overhaul of the entire criminal justice system is necessary to improve the efficiency of both law enforcement and crime prevention in South Africa.  I believe that as a Province we can and must play a vital role in shaping such efficiency through the development of a meaningful White Paper on safety and security.

I then, Mr Chairperson, propose the adoption of vote 9.  I thank you, sir.
Annexures "A" and "B" inserted by Hansard	ANNEXURE "A"
	TABLE 3
	PROVINCES DEPICTING A HIGHER INCIDENCE OF SPECIFIC CRIMES PER
	100 000 OF THE POPULATION THAN THE RSA AVERAGE
	DURING THE PERIOD
	1 JANUARY TO 31 DECEMBER 1997

	FIGURES BASED ON THE PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF THE 1996 CENSUS

	CRIME
	RSA
	PROVINCE
	1
	PROVINCE
	2
	PROVINCE
	3
	PROVINCE
	4
	PROVINCE
	5
	PROVINCE
	6
	PROPERTY RELATED CRIMES

HOUSE-
BREAKING
RESIDENTIAL


658.7
GAUTENG

1089.4
W-CAPE

960.6





HOUSE-
BREAKING
BUSINESS


234.1
W-CAPE

384.3
N-CAPE

360.2
FREE STATE

277.4
GAUTENG

264.8



OTHER ROBBERY


139.1
GAUTENG

270.5
W-CAPE

180.3
N-CAPE

176.7
NORTH WEST

143.0



STOCK THEFT


113.3
N-CAPE

285.5
FREE STATE

253.8
E-CAPE

198.4
MPUMALANGA

171.8
NORTH WEST

139.0
KZ NATAL

118.2

SHOP-
LIFTING


168.5
N-CAPE

271.7
W-CAPE

242.4
GAUTENG

212.1
FREE STATE

175.8



THEFT: MOTOR VEHICLES


265.8
GAUTENG

754.2






THEFT OUT OF/FROM MOTOR VEHICLES



465.6
W-CAPE


938.4
GAUTENG


786.9





OTHER THEFTS


1024.4
GAUTENG

1574.6
W-CAPE

1505.2
N-CAPE

1417.7
FREE STATE

1190.0



FRAUD, FORGERY, etc.


168.1
GAUTENG

331.0
W-CAPE

246.0
N-CAPE

181.6



	VIOLENT CRIMES

MURDER

64.9
KZ-NATAL
80.8
GAUTENG
78.7
W-CAPE
76.0
N-CAPE
72.1
E-CAPE
71.9


ATTEMPTED MURDER


74.3
GAUTENG

99.5
KZ-NATAL

91.4
W-CAPE

88.4




ROBBERY WITH AGGRAV-ATING CIRCUM-
STANCES




184.1
GAUTENG



436.6
KZ-NATAL



209.2




	CRIMES RELATED TO THE SOCIAL FABRIC

RAPE

137.8
N-CAPE
203.4
GAUTENG
177.3
W-CAPE
161.7
NORTH WEST
158.5
FREE STATE
156.4


ASSAULT GBH


619.5
N-CAPE

1751.9
W-CAPE

775.3
NORTH WEST

731.8
FREE STATE

714.0
E-CAPE

705.5
GAUTENG

654.7

ASSAULT COMMON


533.2
N-CAPE

1115.7
W-CAPE

914.9
FREE STATE

793.0
GAUTENG

592.6



	ANNEXURE "B"


VOTE 9 : SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICES : 1998/99 BUDGET ALLOCATION

DESCRIPTION
PROGRAMME 1
PROGRAMME 2

ALLOCATION
ALLOCATION
Personnel Expenditure


Salaries (PER)
R	21 000
R	232 000
Service Bonus
	-
	18 000
Medical Fund
	-
	6 000
Pension Fund
	-
	10 000
Motor Allowance:Senior Officials
	-
	12 000
TOTAL
R	21 000
R	278 000
Administrative Expenditure


Subsistence (S&T)
R	4 000
R	15 000
Official Visits Abroad
	-
	20 000
Provincial Transport
	-
	15 000
Transport KZNPA
	-
	40 000
Tolgate Fees
	-
	1 000
Telephones/Faxes
	-
	8 000
Hire of Post Boxes/Pvt Bags
	-
	1 000
Postage
	-
	500
Departmental Entertainment
	4 000
	4 500
Regional Services Council Levies (PER)
	-
	2 000
Training Courses/Seminars
	-
	16 000
TOTAL
R	8 000
R	123 000
Stores and Livestock


Provisions
R	2 000
R	4 000
Cons. Farm and Garden Requisites
	-
	4 000
Printing
	-
	10 000
Stationery
	-
	12 000
Publications
	-
	10 000
TOTAL
R	2 000
R	40 000
Equipment


Office Equipment and Labour Aids
	-
R	20 000
Computer Equipment
	-
R	12 000
Hire of Equipment
	-
R	15 000
TOTAL
	-
R	47 000
Professional and Special Services


Facilitation/Mediation
	-
R	244 000
Advisory Service to Minister
	-
R	312 000
TOTAL
	-
R	556 000

Miscellaneous Expenditure


Stabilisation Fund Cont. (PER)
	-
R	3 000
TOTAL
	-
R	3 000

R	31 000
R	1 047 000
TOTAL ALLOCATION:VOTE 9
	R1 078 000

R3 315m GRANT-IN-AID IN RESPECT OF THE REGIONAL PEACE SECRETARIAT ALLOCATED UNDER VOTE 1: PREMIER (PROGRAMME 3) HAS BEEN SUSPENDED TO VOTE 9: SAPS (PROGRAMME 3) 

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  I would now like to call upon the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security, the hon B Cele.

MR B H CELE:  Thanks, Mr Chairperson.  It is good to be in Parliament, because you remain honourable.

Chairperson, we are here facing the real challenges out there.  I want to believe that it would be of greatest hypocrisy and non-commitment to truth if one does not acknowledge the grave situation we are facing when it comes to policing generally, in particular in this Province.  My duty remains with the Province and I get paid for working in this Province, and the people of this Province expect service from this House.  It is on that score then that I would stay relevant by giving more accounts about the Province to which I belong.

But I would immediately say I am not a complete rigid, unreasonable pessimist who cannot see life even where there is water and oxygen.  So again, I want to acknowledge the achievements obtained in the Province.

Firstly, I would like to thank the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee which has through its diversity brought unity. Without hesitance one can claim that this Committee has turned itself to be a university of committees.  It has through its robust, unreserved, critical and sometimes emotional discussions had excellent results.  I hope that will continue.

Nonetheless, one can say without reservation that the Committee has not reached its maximum potential in dealing with emergency and security threatening matters.  The MEC for Safety and Security has not attended the Committee meetings on a regular basis.  Although he is always represented, we would have loved to share our meetings with him personally. [uMbovu to be with us at all times].  Well, I think there are many role-players who are concerned with safety and security, that have been instrumental in keeping this Committee on its toes.  I can mention several of them, but thanks to them all.

As I have said above, the Police in this Province have achieved, and we thank them for that.  We hope that they will improve and do even better.  They managed to take the Province of KwaZulu-Natal out of the top drawer, as the most crime ridden province in South Africa.  In most of the serious crimes there has been a drop.  Nonetheless, we remain close to the top drawer.

Maybe one of the success stories is that the Committee has improved its working relationship with the management of the Province.  We are thankful that the recruitment of the new recruits has been opened again.  We also have the members from this Province, who have been sent to the Police Academy in Gauteng to improve their skills.  We are also grateful and upbeat about the creation of more Community Policing Fora in the Province, including the Provincial Board, although many of these CPFs remain dormant and non-functional.

I have just learnt that one of the worst policed countries in the world, Columbia, are doing better than ourselves when it comes to Community Policing Forums, which they started in the year 1997.  Which means we are not growing at all if Columbia are better than ourselves, as we started this in 1990 and they only started in 1997.  I am told they are doing better than ourselves.

We believe that the visit by the National Portfolio of Safety and Security to this Province gave us an opportunity to broaden our understanding of policing matters and a better working relationship with the national.

We have witnessed the beginning of sharing police resources, after the building of the new police stations in places like KwaXimba and are in the pipeline at places like Ndwedwe, and the turning of the sod for the new centre at Nsimbini in Mbumbulu.

As I have said, I am an optimist.  I do not care how dark the night is, I know the next day will dawn, the leaves will produce oxygen and the sun will shine to show the shape of the world. In the police there are issues which defy all this natural logic.  Politicians have been accused, in this House, of interfering with the professional functioning of the police.  I want to assure you it is their duty to make sure that the citizens are safe and protected.  They are elected for that reason.

But listen to this, "Top cop fed up with hard line colleagues".  That is the headline in yesterday's Sunday paper.  This is what the top cop had to say:

	I have been unable to influence most of my white colleagues that transformation should be driven forcefully.  They will cling to power as long as they can.  They feel threatened and do not see themselves working under a black man.

This is not a politician, it is a top cop.  He went further to say:

	There is only one commander working in direct contact with me while there are many under white heads of components.  Look how many white directors there are.  They are in charge of many key components, yet there is only a handful of Africans.

This is not a politician, but a top cop.  This top cop did not end there, he went on to say:

	Transformation relating to training and development of the historically disadvantaged in the Police Service particular Africans, has not been given full attention.  As a result one finds the majority of blacks concentrated in the lower ranks and not involved in decision-making.

Not a politician, but a top cop.

Mr Chairman, I fully concur with these facts.  These are facts.  As if this is not enough, the very high degree and highly sophisticated corruption has wormed itself into the highest level of the police service.  Hence today you find the police freely and proudly elaborating on their plans how to hijack cash-in-transit vans.  Well, we are told that an element of the former liberation movement is also involved.  They use the State's resources to plan theses cash-in-transit hijacks.  This is the explanation given by one of the planners.  This is the police, they sit and plan how to hijack cash.  There are people in high positions, within the Police Force, who are deeply involved themselves.  They know that their chances of being freed are good.  This policeman further explained that the R31 million SBV heist accused were acquitted because the investigating officers systematically and deliberately bungled the evidence.  This is a policeman, not a politician.

Mr Chairperson, if anyone says this is not serious, it should be examined by the best psychologist this country and Province can produce.

The question is who should deal with these matters?  Who should be giving the answers to this House when questions are raised about the non-developmental programmes of the members, non-provision of training for the formally disadvantaged members?  Can I remind this House that the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security has requested and sometimes demanded that this plan be provided to them by the Provincial Commissioner, on many occasions with no success at all.

Who must deal with the corruption within the service in this Province?  Who must make sure that all the members are disciplined and maintain proper morals and standards all the time?  Who must check that the members who need improvement and training are trained and improved?  Who must check that racism is completely uprooted out of this organisation?  Who must ensure that the few top cops who we have are not frustrated and leave the Province?  I want to believe that it is the work of the Provincial Commissioner.  He gets paid for doing just that.

The main question that must be answered now is, does the dear Commissioner deliver?  Does he apply his mind to these questions, and does he find answers?  At least I know the answer to these questions.  The answer is no.  What does he do then?  He spends most of his time writing letters and articles to the media tackling and dealing with political matters.  If you do not believe me, that he has become a political leader without a political party, just listen to this, I quote:

	The present demand that the camp be immediately closed and the equipment etcetera be placed in storage amounts to a complete shifting of the goalposts and if anybody is pussyfooting around, it is most certainly not the South African Police Service.

These are political words usually uttered by politicians.  Things like "pussyfooting".  You cannot say that to politicians and yet you are not a politician.  This "shifting of goalposts" is only said by politicians, not by civil servants.  Civil servants cannot deal with the shifting of goalposts and say the politicians are pussyfooting.  Please join the political party or form your own.

A further quotation:

	We have been quite willing to co-operate from the outset and are still willing to do so, but not on totally unreasonable and one-sided terms.

That is the quotation.  He further says, this is the Provincial Commissioner I am quoting:

	We are constrained to deliver service by the needs of the communities and cannot allow the dictates of politicians whose vacillating motives are anything but clear, to determine when, where and how we should provide a policing service.

These are clearly political words.  They cannot be spoken by a civil servant.  They cannot.  These words cannot be spoken by civil servants.  They can only be said by politicians to politicians.

This is a statement made by supposedly the Provincial Commissioner to the Multiparty Committee of both Safety and Security and Environmental Affairs.  This Committee convened under the leadership of the Minister of Police in this House sat down and seriously deliberated.  This is the Committee that is being attacked in this manner.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR B H CELE:  Yes, yes.  This is the same Committee that is under attack, which has been operating under the leadership of the Minister in this House, and by the way, not attended by the hon Commissioner.  He only comes when he attacks.

That is why we are calling on the politician in the making to leave the office of the Provincial Commissioner.  He must either join a political party of his choice, but by the look of things, it will be more suitable for him to lead the party that he will form.  He has excelled in attacking politicians rather than attacking the crime which he is paid for.  He gets paid for attacking crime, not attacking politicians.

At C R Swart, a rapist a few days ago, walked out.  That is a serial rapist and he has allegedly raped about 12 people in the Berea area.  He just walked out.  I do not know how, ask the Commissioner if you have one.  I do not know how.  We are told that the police are involved in corruption because they do not get paid enough.  They get their slice of the bank robberies and so forth.  What do they get by letting the rapist out of the cells who has raped about 12 people?  Do they also share the raping?

These are the things that should be answered to by the Commissioner of the Province, instead of saying the vacillating politicians.  Let the politicians look at their own vacillating, not the civil servants.  Hence this Commissioner must vacate his office to allow the people that want to do the job in this Province do it.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR B H CELE:  Chairperson, then we will begin to deal with the crime in this Province.  The top cop I was quoting is a son that this Province has produced.  He is one of the best policemen that has served this Province.  Unfortunately this Province has not experienced that he has the ability to be one of the best policemen in this Province, hence he is frustrated.  Commissioner Khanyile we are as frustrated as you are.  This is the person that should be in charge of this office.  He spends all his time wasting his energy because of this frustration.  I want to tell you, we are going to lose more policemen who should be coming to work in this Province.  There is a new way of reversing affirmative action that should be taking place.  They frustrate the police to such an extent that they leave this Province.   This House cannot sit here and allow that to happen.  This must be stopped, and must be stopped now.  The people who understand the pain, and who have an understanding of the history of those who have suffered must be given the chance to rule and lead this Province.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has three minutes.

MR B H CELE:  Otherwise we will come here all the time to complain about the crime and the increase in crime, because people are not given the chance to serve this Province, those who have a love for this Province in their hearts.  They know that when things are hot they will retreat and go where they come from.  The time has come for the chances to be given to the formally disadvantaged communities, to the formerly disadvantaged members in order for them to serve this Province.  I thank you so much, Chairperson.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon Mr Cele.  I have been informed that there is another slight change to the speakers list.  Before I announce the changes I would like to remind the Whips, that the recommendation was made that the changes should be made before we start the debate rather than having to change halfway through the debate.  It is rather disturbing.  But be that as it may, the latest change that has been made, Ms Xulu and the hon Mr Mthiyane will be swopping places.  I would now like to call upon the hon Mr Mthiyane to speak for six minutes.

MR M J MTHIYANE:  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  First of all, it is a great pleasure for me to congratulate the Minister on the budget speech that he has delivered to this Assembly today.

Having thanked the Minister's for his speech, Mr Chairman, I would like to dwell on the justice system in this country.  The reason why I want to focus on the justice system is because of the link between the justice and police departments.

The justice system in this country, according to the Constitution, has been granted independence for it to function in terms of the Constitution of this country.  It is very appalling to see that some political parties are interfering and are attempting to cripple that very justice system that has been empowered by the Constitution to operate independently and without any interference.

Let me come to the specifics of what I am trying to express in this Assembly.  If I may, Mr Chairperson, reflect back on previous cases that were tried in the High Courts of this country, like Shobashobane, the Malan trial and Sifiso Nkabinde's trial.  During the Malan trial the ANC attempted to interfere with the impartiality of the Judge.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR M J MTHIYANE:  Mr Chairperson, it shows vividly that the ANC is and are the people who are interfering with the justice system in this country.  To corroborate my statement, Director Bushy Engelbrecht was appointed by the State President, the leader of the ANC to crucify Mr Sifiso Nkabinde.

Bushy Engelbrecht became a hero in the eyes of the ANC after he had apprehended Sifiso Nkabinde.  As you know that after a job well done you have to be rewarded.  Mr Engelbrecht was awarded with a promotion to the national office of the Police Department.  Immediately after the arrest of Mr Nkabinde the hon member who is also a spokesperson for the ANC, commended Bushy Engelbrecht for his well done job in arresting the enemy of the ANC.

Mr Chairman, again justice prevailed.  Sifiso Nkabinde was acquitted and his innocence was proved beyond reasonable doubt.  
AN HON MEMBER:  He must join the ANC.

MR M J MTHIYANE:  Mr Chairman, the hon member Mr Dumisani Makhaye usually criticises the justice system and he attacked the character of Judge Combrink.  He publicly announced that the Judge was incompetent and he also promulgated racial statements.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!

MR M J MTHIYANE:  The acquittal of Sifiso Nkabinde by Judge Combrink was not in favour of the ANC.

The verdict of the Judge was in accordance with the Constitution that was drafted, voted and approved by the very same party.

Mr Chairman, before I conclude, I wish to comment on the shooting incident which occurred at the Durban High Court last week. 

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MR M J MTHIYANE:  This incident has indicated that in the near future the country will be ungovernable.  It also indicates that our society does not respect the law.

I would never have thought that people would kill one another within the court premises or in front of the court's eyes.  I wish to send my condolences to the families of those people who lost their lives.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, I would like to censure those people who were responsible for the incident and I wish to thank the police for their braveness.

The budget, Mr Chairperson, will attempt to bring back the morals of the police personnel in KwaZulu-Natal.  I think it will also help them combat the high rate of crime.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I am afraid your time is over, hon member.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon Mr Mthiyane.  I would now like to call upon the hon Mr Jeffery, for 15 minutes.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  I would like to start by addressing an issue relating to the Provincial Peace Committee.  The Minister has referred to it in his budget speech, and it does fall under this budget debate.

The concern is, and that is one of the things that has not been mentioned, is that the Committee has been facing problems with functioning, and with achieving a quorum at its meetings.  Representation in the Provincial Peace Act was structured to allow quite a wide representation from political parties.  Three from the ANC and three from the IFP, for example.  It is not uncommon that whilst there is always representation from the parties, not all those members can attend.  There are also other sectors that often do not send their full complement.  The difficulty the Committee has been facing is that of reaching a quorum of 50%.

In order to address that issue we have proposed that the quorum be reduced to a third to enable the Committee to take the administrative decisions that it needs to take.  Unfortunately that proposal, although it has the support from most of the parties in the House, is not supported by the IFP.  They are proposing to rather increase the powers of the Secretary to the Committee, which would be unfair to the Secretary because it puts him in a difficult position.  I would really want to express my concern regarding this issue.  I hope that the hon Minister in his reply will respond to that issue and will let us know what is happening with that amendment.

Mr Chair, the issues we debate about in this budget debate on the Safety and Security vote are obviously the crime problems and the crime situation.  Those are matters that we debate and raise every year, and we also raise in motions.  The question that we need to be looking at is the question of the effectiveness of the South African Police Service in the Province, and the effectiveness particularly of the Provincial Secretariat, and is it able to carry out the functions assigned to it in terms of the Constitution.

I want to concur with what the hon Chairperson of the Committee, Mr Cele, has said regarding the transformation process and the problems with that in the Province.  The transformation issue is something that has come up in this House during this session.  The hon Minister Peter Miller made some comments in that regard, and I would like to just respond to those general points.

Firstly, the position of the ANC is that we need a non-racial country.  It was the position of the Freedom Charter in the 1950's that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.  The adoption of the Freedom Charter was one of the factors that gave rise to a split with members that left the ANC to join the Pan Africanist Congress.

But having said that, we need to be realistic about where we have come from, and the position that we are in.  We have had over 300 years of South Africa being developed racially - of white supremacy in South Africa.  It was not just the National Party from 1948, it was long before that.  You had laws passed. If there was a problem of the colonial farmers not having sufficient labour for their farms then laws were passed.  The Glen Gray Act in the Cape Province and the Shepstonian system in Natal.  Laws were passed to drive African people off the land as cheap labour for the white farms.  If the African market gardeners in Pietermaritzburg, at the turn of the century were a problem, because they were competing too successfully with the white farmers, then again laws were passed to stop that from happening and to make sure that they then could not engage in market gardening to the extent as before.  To reduce the threat from African people, the education system, particularly by the late Dr Verwoerd, the leader of the National Party, was doctored to ensure that African people could be trained in manual tasks and not have pretensions of being managers, or people in decision-making positions.

Those are the realities that we have got to come to terms with.  1994 did not suddenly put everything right.  It gave everybody in the country the right to vote, which they had never had before, but the actual undoing of the damage of the past, 350 years, is something that still needs to be addressed.  That is why we talk of transformation.

It does not mean that white people are no longer wanted, as the hon Minister Miller said, it means though that one has to realistically address the imbalances of the past, and those imbalances obviously will continue into the future.  You cannot start a race where one runner has to stand 400 metres behind the starting line, and that is effectively the problem that we have to address in this country.  That is what we mean by transformation.

One of the difficulties that we are facing in this transition period is that white people, and I am obviously speaking generally, seem to find it difficult to accept change.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR J H JEFFERY:  I am referring to a report in the Natal Witness of 13 May 1998.  It was a report on a survey carried out by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.  First of all, it showed that I mean it is now very difficult to find, including the members over there, anybody who supported ~Apartheid~.  I remember Mr Redinger during his departure speech, saying that he had actually supported change from within the National Party.  

Let me read some of the figures.  In 1984 90% of the whites felt that the Government's combatting of terrorism was good or very good.  In 1989 50% of whites were still in favour of detention without trial for suspected violaters of security laws, despite widespread reports about severe ill-treatment and torture in detention.  And it continues.  44% of whites claim that the former political system was not unjust.  The same percentage believe that ~Apartheid~ was a good idea, but was badly carried out, and every third respondent held the view that ~Apartheid~ has done more good than harm to South Africa.

It is interesting that those figures correspond with similar figures taken in West Germany about the attitudes of the German people to Nazism.  54% of the people in 1951, in Germany, felt that national socialism or Nazism was a good idea, but that it was badly carried out.

Those are the problems that we are facing.  We are in a transition period.  We have been very lucky with the transition period to have had it gone off relatively peacefully.  We have a problem with white people, in particular, not actually accepting that the past was wrong, and that things need to change.  That relates to members of the House who are not here I am afraid.

The issue then relates to what impact does this have on the police.  The Police Force was one of the primary arms of the National Party Government in crushing resistance.  The police were there to enforce the unjust laws that were applied.  They were in fact given more scope and more freedom to go beyond the law.  We are now hearing about the revelation of the death squads, of Eugene de Kock and others.  Not just the death squads of Eugene de Kock, but were the death squads coming from far higher up.  Instructions were given to murder people, to hide their bodies, burn them, dump them in rivers and so on.  The bodies are being dug up now.

It was the police that were one of the key agents responsible for this.  Obviously the question of transformation within the police is something that needs to be looked at very carefully.  It is obviously going to be difficult for the leadership of the police, who were involved in enforcing these laws to change into the new South Africa.

The question one would want to ask regarding these opinion polls, and they are generally of the white population.  What is the attitude of the police leadership, the whites that were in the police before 1994?  What is their attitude?  How many of them actually share these views that ~Apartheid~ was not such a bad thing, it was just wrongly applied?  My concern is that a large number of people within the police actually believe that.

We can only deal effectively with crime if we have proper leadership in the police.  We have to have leadership that supports the new order and leadership that is committed to building that new order.  At the moment we are experiencing problems of crime, problems of inefficiency, and problems of corruption.  How much of that is because there is not that support from the leadership?  The leadership of the police must also reflect the population of the Province.  Figures supplied by the Provincial Commissioner, show that within his own office, that twice the number of senior officers in his own office are white, twice more than blacks combined.  That would be Africans, coloureds and Indians.  Is that a proper reflection of the population.  The concern it builds is, if there are suspicions of white attitudes from the old order of the police, are they actually going to effectively address the problems that we are facing?

We see in the papers regularly, and just looking at the Sunday Tribune over the weekend, "More investigation into police behaviour, brutal assault regarding an assault on a couple at Chatsworth by the police".  We have got the headlines of the Tribune, "Court killings, why were the cops so late".  A side issue on that is why were the cops so late?  It is known at trials that there are often problems.  The police generally come to trials.  Why were the police not there.  The same question was asked a year and a half or more ago of Shobashobane, why were the cops so late?  They knew about the fact that there were likely to be problems, why did they not respond?  That is the subject of an inquiry, but the questions are still being asked.

There was a report in the Natal Witness on Friday, about a woman from Northdale I think it was, who was harassed by members of the Dog Unit, who thought she had drugs with her.  There are all these problems.  What are the police doing about it?  We had a debate in this House exactly a year ago about the police searching of the ANC office at Mkuze.  We were told that they were looking for weapons.  How they were not aware that this was an ANC office, and not a residential house, which is what they were specifically looking for, I find very difficult to comprehend. 

The question really is what are the police doing about the resources?  If you look at the Mkuze case, the matter was referred to the Independent Complaints Directorate, but instead the police conducted their own investigation and cleared everybody.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR J H JEFFERY:  Even though the police warrant or the search warrant from the magistrate said the search had to be conducted in daytime.  The police, with their limited resources, and there is continued reference in the police report to the problems of resources, waste their resources in conducting an investigation when the matter is being investigated by the ICD.

As far as other problems with the misuse of police resources in these disciplinary matters.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has two minutes left.

MR J H JEFFERY:  I have a charge sheet for a Sergeant J M Barnard.  Sergeant Barnard has been charged with failing to follow the grievance procedures, because he wrote to the State President.  What a waste of time that this is being done.

I want to briefly then respond to some of the points raised by the hon Mr Mthiyane about the justice system.  Firstly, his lack of knowledge of the justice system is evident by his statement that Nkabinde's innocence was proved beyond reasonable doubt.  Any person with any knowledge of the law knows that in court it is whether the guilt has been proved beyond reasonable doubt, not the innocence.  A person can be found not guilty, but still be innocent.  It is a fact that Mr Nkabinde's bodyguards have been convicted of serious cases.  The murder of Mzwandile Mbongwa, the murder of the three policemen that the hon Konigkramer said a lot about, the three policemen outside his house.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please! 

MR J H JEFFERY:  Obviously the justice system also indicates the problems of the imbalance.  How can you have 14 Judges of the High Court of KwaZulu-Natal, writing to complain about the appointment or possible appointment of an African Judge.  That shows the problems with transformation.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!

MR J H JEFFERY:  That shows that these Judges are probably also within the 44% or whatever percentage of people that thought that ~Apartheid~ was not a bad thing, it was just wrongly applied.  Mr Chair, the question of transformation is something that needs to be urgently addressed.  I would have liked it if there had been more time to address the Commissioner's report or his attitude to the problems of the police facilities in the Coastal Forest Reserve, but unfortunately time does not allow.  He has gone to the newspapers about it.  Maybe we could do the same thing, but just to say that his comments are personally unacceptable.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time has expired.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Thank you, Mr Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Our next speaker is the hon Advocate Schutte for five minutes.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Chairman, I must say that if I were an hon member of the ANC, I would, just like the hon member Mr Jeffery, only deal with the past.  Because if you look at the present, the dire situation of law and order and the fact that there is no commitment and no credibility on behalf of the National Government to deal with this matter.  The best proof of this is the great underfunding of the Police Force.  If I were in that position I would also only deal with the past.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Give him a hearing please.  Order! Order!

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Chairman, I would also like to deal with the hon member Mr Cele.  He has in this House in an unprecedented manner, in a vicious manner attacked the Provincial Commissioner.  I am not here to defend the hon Provincial Commissioner.  I am sure that he is capable of doing that himself but, Mr Chairman, I believe it is totally uncalled for and unfair that he should be attacked in this manner, because he is not here to defend himself.  I believe that if he is to be attacked then he should be attacked in the Provincial Portfolio Committee.  That is the best place to attack him, and not in his House.

I want to state at the outset that the National Party is totally committed to the restoration of law and order, and to the eradication of crime.  Without doing that we can forget about doing anything in this country.  Over the weekend it was reported that Sir Robert Renwick, the previous British Ambassador to South Africa, said that rampant crime was the main reason why South Africa is not attracting real international investment at this time.

Mr Chairman, to eradicate crime and to restore law and order we need to have confidence in our Police Force, and respect for our courts.  I believe that there are many reasons to be very concerned about this.  The police should be part of the solution, not of the problem.  Hardly a day passes without a newspaper reporting about police complicity in major crime.  The Independent on Saturday, on the front page, mentioned the involvement of Chatsworth police, and MK soldiers in crime.  I am very sad to have to mention that, because we want to keep this out of the political arena.  According to the report they have been involved in a major robbery of R7,2 million.  Mention is also made of a robbery of R31 million in Pinetown in 1996.

We as a Province, need to take the strongest measures at our disposal to avoid this kind of thing.  The Constitution specifically empowers provinces to institute a commission to promote police efficiency, and good police community relations.  That is why I believe, it is of absolute urgency that the Bill that has been proposed by the National Party should be enacted as soon as possible.

Mr Chairman, mention was also made of the Sifiso Nkabinde trial.  That has also indicated major deficiencies in the police investigation methods, and in particular, by that Unit.  I believe, because of the seriousness of these allegations, and the findings, that the police should investigate this and present a report in this regard.

What is of great concern is that the hon leader of the ANC, in this House, has used this trial as a pretext for attacking the judiciary.  Sadly also on racial lines.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has only one minute left.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Constitutionally the judiciary should be seen to be independent.  That is the very basis for our constitutional state.  If we take that away then all the constitutionally entrenched rights fall away and we become subject to political and party political whims.  To ensure the independence of the judiciary, politicians should not attack Judges unless it is on a legal basis, and on a substantive motion in this House.  To attack Judges on racial grounds without legal merit, is to undermine the independence of the judiciary and our Constitution.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order!

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  When you undermine the integrity of the courts I believe the hon member Mr Zuma is devaluing ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Let there be order.

AN HON MEMBER:  They are nationally composed.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Chairman, I believe if you devalue the position of our courts by attacking our judiciary, you are in fact inviting the kinds of attacks that we have seen during the last week.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time has expired.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Will the hon member take a question? 

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Unfortunately my time has expired.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  His time has expired, unfortunately.  Thank you, hon Advocate Schutte.  The next speaker is the hon Mr Ntombela..  [Mr Mahlobo, you have 9 minutes].

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Please give him a hearing will you.

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip): [First of all, Chairperson, it seems as if those people across there are now in charge of this Parliament, they are doing everything they want to do]. 

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Chairman, on a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  What is the point of order.

MR A RAJBANSI:  In view of the fact that this hon speaker is a great speaker in Zulu.  I want to hear his speech and my machine is not operating.

AN HON MEMBER:  Take the next one.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Please try another one, and will the people upstairs ensure that the machines are working.  Continue.

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip):

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order, please.

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip): 
THE CHAIRPERSON. [Please give the hon member chance to speak].

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please give him a hearing will you?

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip): 

THE CHAIRPERSON:  [The hon member has one minute].

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip):

TRANSLATION:  Chairperson, firstly, let me start over there, we had my colleague who is the Chairperson for Safety and Security, speaking about the corruption taking place in this Province and about robberies and other such things.  

I was thinking, as a chairperson that I respect, he was supposed to tell us who is committing those robberies, because robbers are known.  There are bodyguards who are protecting ANC members, who were caught robbing.  Our chairperson should stop attacking the commission instead of attacking his party and his ~Umkhonto~.

Chairperson, I am speaking as a person who has been in this respectable department for a long time.  This department which is overburdened, because it is a department which is well known, it is under the leadership of the hon ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, in charge of it on behalf of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, which is led by the IFP.

Firstly, the hon Minister was not given enough power, Chairperson, to be in charge of this department, yet, when anything negative and dirty occurs, ~Inkosi~ Ngubane is criticised, because there is a perception that he is not doing well in leading this department.  In fact, Mr Chairperson, I know that the National Government which is led by the African National Congress, has designed and planned that wherever other political parties are leading, those governments should not be given powers.
  
The commission is being criticised, yet there is nothing it can do.  It is being criticised on top of the fact that the National Government has deprived the Provincial Government which is led by the IFP, of power, there is nothing that can be done by the leader of this department.

The proof of that is in an example, Chairperson, if any incident occurs where people die, my child here, Dumisani Makhaye, shouts over the radio loud speaker, saying he wants Sydney Mafumadi to come to the Province.  Not even once has he ever said he would take the matter to the leader of this department, ~Inkosi~ Ngubane.  He has never said this.

The proof of what I am saying is that the African National Congress should fall in line if it wants this Government of National Unity to continue, and that there should be no violence in this country.

Mr Chairperson, this department has a very heavy burden, where there is a campaign going on, where it is not clear what is happening with the positions of the police in this Province, or their raises.

Mr Chairperson, all this happens without the consent of ~Inkosi~ Ngubane.  Out of the blue it is said police have been promoted to certain positions, without the Minister who is the one who is supposed to know how the police work, and make his contributions there.  But that does not happen.  The Chairperson knows that.

The difficulties of this department, Ndabezitha, ~Inkosi~ of Zashuka, you need to know that you are facing an obstructive light, because wherever you go, go into places where people have died, go into those places where houses have been burnt down, but when people talk about a person in charge of this department, you are not mentioned, but they refer to Sydney Mafumadi, and you are never mentioned.

I praise you a lot, Ndabezitha, for being seen where houses have been burnt down.  Just yesterday you went to Maqumbu, where the soldiers of ~Umkhonto~, leading thugs, attacked a house and burnt down the whole household at Maqumbu in Maphumulo.  But today, Dumisani never commented about that.  Dumisani never commented about Maqumbu.  I know that the hon Minister is touched as I am speaking this way.

Because I have said that those who were involved in a robbery in Church Street, was it not the police of ~Umkhonto~ who used to protect one of the hon members here.  At Merrivale, where there have been robberies, is there no member of ~Umkhonto~ who has been found there to be committing robberies?

Chairperson, I clearly remember that when we talked about this department, our Chairperson, Ndosi, knows the confusion of this department, a confusion that is caused by the African National Congress.  There is no other party that messes up peace here, because they want this Province to be ungovernable.  But I am saying, it will be governable, because we are here, and we have seen what they are.

Now they are hanging on to the Commission, criticising it.  The Commission has its own shortcomings.  The National Party has its own mistakes.  But here, in this Province, people who are messing up peace and who cause lawlessness, are the African National Congress.  People are raped and Ministers go to prisons to say that people should be released from prisons.

Russell Ngubo was released by some hon Ministers.  I do not want to mention their names aloud, because they are my relations, who went and said Russell Ngubo should be given a job.

Chairperson, it bothers me, because the ANC gathered the children for training.  They trained them overseas, they trained them in these acts of making the country ungovernable.  Today the truth will come out clearly.  Sifiso has turned around and attacked them.  The dog is now biting his master.

A lot of truth is still going to come out.  Even the death of Chris Hani has been revealed.  Sifiso has revealed Hani's killer.  He has been revealed.

Mr Chairperson, I am greatly saddened, because there is this Committee which says there should be peace between the ANC and the IFP.  I, as an older person, do not see the peace between the ANC and the IFP continuing.  I do not believe it will continue.

I think that the Premier of this Province will truly have a difficult task as long as the African National Congress is here and continues to handle itself the way it does.  Because you are engaged in establishing peace, they have a campaign of doing away with peace.

Just listen, I am not protected, I am not protected, I am talking, I have permission to talk, but Bheki Cele engages in these acts of his.  T/E

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please.  [If you have finished, please be quiet].

MR B H CELE: [A point of being out of order.  I have never heard such a word being used by an hon member of Parliament.  For him to say to me, you slaughtered it for your mother.  Saying that to me.  It is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing].

THE CHAIRPERSON: [Is that a point of order, or it is a question]?

MR B H CELE: It is a point that says that the hon member is going astray, which means he is out of order, he is going astray.  If he could correct that and withdraw these words of insult and vulgarity he has used, then we can continue].

THE CHAIRPERSON  [What are those vulgar words]?

MR B H CELE  [When I said Sifiso slaughtered a goat for him and poured gall on him when he went out, he said he slaughtered it for my mother].  [LAUGHTER]

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip):.  [Let me answer for myself, Chairperson].

THE CHAIRPERSON:  [I am not going to open a debate on that.  If the hon member said that, we would ask him to withdraw it].

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip): TRANSLATION:  Chairperson, I think that what I said was not vulgar.  It is the same as saying a goat was slaughtered for me and gall was poured on me.  I take it that this is not vulgar.  These two things go together.  There is something amiss about gall, there is something amiss about slaughtering for another person.  We are not going to allow Bheki to be mischievous.  There is no vulgarity].  [LAUGHTER]  T/E

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order! Order please! Order!  May I make a ruling from the Chair.  It would appear that there has not been extreme offence, judging from the reaction of the House.  Therefore shall we proceed.  I will now call upon the hon Mr Nel to proceed.

AN HON MEMBER:  Comrade Chair?

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Unless it is something new, I have already made a decision on the matter.  I have already made a decision on the matter, unless it is something new.

AN HON MEMBER: TRANSLATION:  Yes, Chairperson, you made a ruling on it, but you must remember one thing, I am saying, we must remember one thing, yes, if this word is going to be used in Parliament, in this hon House, and then we say it means nothing, it is very wrong.  Even though you have made a ruling, but it is a wrong lesson.  T/E

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip): [Is there anything wrong with gall]?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Once again, shall we proceed.  Mr Nel.  The hon Mr Nel has seven minutes.  Over to you.

MR W U NEL: TRANSLATION:  Thank you, Chairperson.  It gives me pleasure to follow the hon member, Mr Gandaganda Ntombela.  I heard that he is complaining about the issue that if something goes wrong, the African National Congress calls for the Minister, Mr Mufamadi.  He is asking why a grievance is not conveyed to our Provincial Department.

In my view it is so, if there is a problem, we often run to place it onto others, but if there is something that went well, we accept it for ourselves.  It happens, especially in these two separate departments, in the National Government and the Provincial Government.

But I would like to ask the IFP why they do not use the opportunities they have, because if I look at our Provincial Department, there are a lot of opportunities, but we are not using them, and then we blame others.  T/E

Mr Chairman, it is indeed true that we are not going to see development; we are not going to see any sustainable transformation; we are not going to see economic growth; and the result is that we are not going to see delivery to the poor people either whilst there is this wave of crime, and especially violent crime in our country.  That is why people, like the hon ex-Ambassador, the hon Mr Renwick, came here and said the main problem is violent crime.  Do not look for development, do not look for investment until you solve that problem, is his message.

Last week we witnessed this gangster-like shooting on the steps of the High Court of this Province in Durban, which is totally unacceptable; the hon member here, Mrs Downs says it is unbelievable.  Yes, it is unbelievable, except for the fact that we have unfortunately seen it before in this country.  But it is something we dare not tolerate.  As long as we tolerate the situation, where bullets lodge inside of the Judge's door in the building, the High Court in Durban, how can we claim to be a Government and a country that aspires to something better, aspires to compete on the world stage.  We are not.  We are going to be relegated to the rubbish heap.  That is what is going to happen to us unless we now show a political will to deal with this problem.  We have got to deal with it as a matter of urgency.  I will come back to that.

But, sir, many allegations have been made today that I like to respond to.  The hon member Mr Jeffery referred to the fact that 14 Judges objected, in writing, to the appointment of a certain Judge to the chair of Deputy Judge President.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR W U NEL:  An African Judge, Judge Shabalala, to the chair of Deputy Judge President in this Province.  I hold no brief for the 14 Judges or any Judge for that matter.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!

MR W U NEL:  Or for Judge Shabalala.  I just want to say that when a member of this House insinuates that 14 Judges are perhaps also closet supporters of the old ~Apartheid~ system, then I think it is a severe indictment on this House, and we are in fact then undermining the High Court.

So, sir, yes, let us pursue transformation with all the speed that we can, but when members of this House start making those kind of allegations I take exception, and I think it is not helpful.

The hon member Mr Cele also had an attack on the Commissioner ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon member take, is it a question or a point of order?

MR J H JEFFERY:  Will the hon member take a question?

MR W U NEL:  Yes, I will take a question.

MR J H JEFFERY:  My question to the hon member is, is he saying that the judiciary is beyond question?

MR W U NEL:  I did not say that, hon Chairman.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Give him a hearing please.

MR W U NEL:  The hon member knows very well that that is not what I said.  What I said is that for him to imply that perhaps the majority of those 14 Judges are also closet supporters of ~Apartheid~, I think is a very serious allegation.  That goes far beyond questioning the judiciary or the speed with which they are transforming, and he knows that very well.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

AN HON MEMBER:  Some of them are known members of the Broerderbond.  It is a fact.

AN HON MEMBER:  Including Combrinck.

AN HON MEMBER:  And some of them are members of the Communist Party, and that is a fact.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order!

MR W U NEL:  Mr Chairman, transformation is of course an urgent matter.  We are concerned that such a vast percentage of the personnel of the SAPS still do not have driver's licenses.  We think it is a totally unacceptable situation.  It is surely a very easy programme to actually rectify such basic deficiencies in the Force.  We are concerned about the lack of discipline in the Force, but might I correct myself, it is no longer a Force, it is now a service and perhaps at the root of that is also a bit of a problem.

So we are concerned about the lack of motivation.  We are concerned, very concerned, despite certain other suspicions, about the lack of senior management appointments from the black, Indian and coloured community.  But we are mostly concerned about the lack of clarity on the Department's affirmative action policy, and a lack of an indication of what they are going to do, the National Minister and the National Commissioner.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MR W U NEL:  What are they going to do to accelerate training programmes, to accelerate the evaluation of the members of the Police Force and thereby to also accelerate appropriate promotions.  We want that to happen as soon as possible.

But, sir, in closing, I must say my greatest disappointment about this debate is the fact that the Ministry has not addressed the powers which they do have in terms of the Constitution, and in the course of the year have not used them.  Sir, the Province is entitled to monitor police conduct, oversee the effectiveness and efficiency, to promote good relations, to assess their effectiveness, and then we are also even empowered to appoint commissions.

I want to ask, how many opportunities has this Ministry in the Province created in the course of the year and used, because it is useless for us to always cry that we have no powers, but those that we have, we do not even use. 

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is over.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  The next speaker is the hon Miss Xulu for six minutes.

MISS M XULU: (Whip): 

TRANSLATION:  Thank you, Chairperson.  Firstly, I praise the hon ~Inkosi~ of the Ngubanes, for presenting the budget speech.  I rise with personal gratitude.  I thought that the hon member who last spoke, Mr Nel, says there are things we are leaving out, which we are supposed to be using.  But he has failed to say which plans he says we must use in this Government of ours.

Here I am saying, let me plead with you, brothers and sisters who are cross in the African National Congress.  As we hear our Chairperson, Mr Cele, the hon member, complaining about functions he says are not being done properly, complaining about the Provincial Commissioner.

I am saying that the African National Congress across there, should unite with us and talk to the National Government, so that it can devolve powers to the Province.  Powers should be given to the hon Minister, ~Inkosi~ of the Ngubanes, so that we can be able to grab the Commissioner by his coat, and for him to perform provincial functions.

The Commissioner is not controlled in the Province.  He is controlled by the National Minister.  So, no matter how much we can talk, if the powers are not transferred here, there is nothing we can do.  We will just talk.  Let us co-operate with you and return powers for managing here in our Province.  T/E

Chairperson, I have an issue concerning the VIP protection of members.  These members work long hours, and they do not receive their overtime payments.  This is a serious matter.  It is not a concern for the National Minister or the Provincial Minister, but for the Provincial Commissioner.  So I am asking the Provincial Commissioner to regard this as a serious matter and as a matter of emergency.

The information I have is that when the National Minister comes from Cape Town or Pretoria to do business here in KwaZulu-Natal, the members receive their overtime payment.  They are not informed that the money is finished, as the others are told that the money is finished.  So it is hurting.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MISS M XULU: (Whip):  It is hurting, yes.  It concerns the Commissioner.  I said it is not for the Minister, national or provincial, but this is a matter for the Commissioner to look into.  He must treat it as an urgent matter.  You can imagine when a person works for long hours, as they have to work through the schedule of the members, and at the end of the day they do not receive their overtime.  It is really hurting.  The money is there.  The money has been allocated for their duties, but why are they not given their money?  That is the question.  I want to know where does this money go?

AN HON MEMBER:  Yes, we want to know.

MISS M XULU: (Whip):  It is not for ~Inkosi~ Ngubane to answer, it is for the Commissioner.  What is surprising is that the staff from the regional office in Durban, who are receiving their payments when the National Minister visits, are mainly the white and Indian members.  The majority of the members who do not receive their overtime payments are the black policemen.  So instead of dividing the workers and members, could it please be looked into.

The second issue is that of the medical aid.  We in the Committee agreed that the members should be given a choice, and it is painful that until now the people are being forced to join one medical aid.  I know as members in this House we belong to one medical aid.  I agree with that because we do not come from one institution.  We come from different places with different medical schemes.  The policemen come from one institution with their medical schemes.  Why are they forced?  They must be given freedom to choose.

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!  Like the IFP did.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MISS M XULU: (Whip):  Thank you.  I am appealing to the Commissioner that he must consider these two matters as serious and very urgent.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  The next speaker is the hon Mrs Galea for six minutes.

MRS C E GALEA:  Thank you, Chairperson.  Vote 9, the South African Police Service, covers the Ministry, the admin, and the civilian Secretariat, and has had their budget decreased.  I wish to congratulate the hon Minister ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, his Department and the Provincial Commissioner Serfontein and the South African Police Service for their reports.

The Minister has visited many hot spots with the Portfolio Committee and the Peace Committee.  We have been to ~Umlazi~, Babanango, Dududu, Mandeni, etcetera.  These have been mentioned in his report, and for this I thank him.  When there is a problem he goes with people, and this is why I think it is very important that the peace initiatives taken must be all inclusive of all parties, businesses and interested people so that we can actually get peace in this Province.

Of concern is the ongoing violence against women and children.  In the South African Police Service KwaZulu-Natal annual report, it reads:

	That during the period January to December 1997 a total of 8 639 rapes and attempted rapes were reported.

We keep reading about violence at schools.  There seems to be no stopping this ongoing violence.  It is creeping in everywhere, and that is why I firmly believe that we can do something about it if we become involved in Community Policing Forums, and that is what I am going to give my time to today.

To understand Community Policing Forums, one should take note of the following inter-related elements.

*	The role of the police officer becomes that of peace officer, rather than the law enforcement officer involved solely in crime control.

*	Community policing involves a pro-active approach to policing.  Community policing is therefore smart policing, because it mobilises the community against crime.  It utilises all the resources available to the police and the community against crime.  It addresses the causes of crime and disorder in partnership with the community and it activates the community as a source of assistance and of information.  Community policing moves away from accident driven style of traditional policing and follows a more problem orientated approach.  Another aspect of community policing is that it creates police responses to the underlying causes of problems are also introduced.

*	In adhering to a police/community partnership, the police adopt a key strategy of communication and consultation.

*	CPFs are intended to assist the police to improve the delivery of police service to the community, strengthen the partnership between the community and their police, promote joint problem identification and problem solving, ensure police accountability and transparency, and ensure consultation and proper communication between the police and the community.  This is very important, because sometimes people are misinformed and the police always bear the brunt of their allegations.

*	Closer ties with the community members and open channels of communication between local communities and the police allow for the community to be a valuable source of information, a more realistic expectation of the abilities of the police, and the functions of the police, as well as the relationship between the police and other agencies in the criminal justice process to be put into perspective.

Just to summarise the main factors:

1.	Structured consultation between the police and different communities about local problems, policies, priorities and strategies.

2.	The adaptation of the policing strategies to fit the requirements of particular local circumstances, as well as the development of a customer orientated and rendering of service.

3.	The mobilisation of all resources available to the community and the police to resolve problems and promote safety and security.

4.	Accountability to the community through mechanisms designed to encourage transparency.

5.	The changing of policing focus for a primary reactive focus to crime control, to a pro-active focus on which the underlining causes of crime and violence are covered.

That is why members of all three tiers of Government, that is National, Provincial and Local Government, should become involved in community policing forums.  I appeal to all members and your colleagues who are councillors.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MRS C E GALEA:  All right, thank you.  Please become involved in your forums.  Go to your local police stations, find out if they have one.  If they have not, get involved in starting one.

In closing, I wish to offer our deepest sympathy to the family and colleagues and friends of those members of the Police Service who have been killed whilst striving to reduce crime levels in this Province.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.  Our next speaker is the hon Mr Rehman for six minutes.

MR M F REHMAN:  Thank you, Chairperson.  I compliment our hon Minister of Safety and Security, the hon ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, for presenting this budget here today.  I would also like to place on record my sincere thanks and appreciation to our Provincial Secretary, General van der Merwe, the Provincial Commissioner, Mr Chris Serfontein, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Khanyile, Director Ngidi, Director Nkabinde, and other senior officials who have always attended our Portfolio Committee meetings.  Although at times debates used to get, so to speak, "very hot", we all at the end of the day had only one goal in our Province, that is "peace".

Chairperson, it is not only disappointing, but frustrating for us as members from the IFP to serve on this Committee, where our hon MEC only has powers to carry out functions in administering the police services in our Province.  I believe that the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal need a much more adequate policing service.  It should, however, be noted that the transformation of policing in South Africa is far from complete.  The adoption of the Constitution has given rise to an array of questions, and ambiguities with regards to policing.  The Constitution provides for the National Police Service, hence provincial policing is devolved of power.  We, from the IFP, call for more policing powers in our Province.

South Africa has good laws, a good legal system and a tradition of legal practice that stands up to the rest of the world.  However, these immeasurable assets are being wasted by the fact that the State does not see the urgent and pressing need to assert these laws.  Moreover, this does not entail a draconian crackdown, but merely the provision of a loyal, well paid and well equipped Police Force and justice system.  In fact, this is not an option, it is the primary duty of any Government to ensure that its people are safe and secure in their homes and on the streets.  This is the first call of the budget.  In any event the other social needs such as housing, welfare, transport, health, education will never be met in a lawless society.  Trespassers will invade the homes, gangsters will run the taxi routes and civil servants will pocket the pensions.  We cannot let this happen.  The sanctity of life is paramount and the State's first duty is to uphold it.

Chairperson, if South Africans were safe, transformation could take place.  Until then, we will slide into greater and greater poverty.  Look at South Africa today, there is so much emphasis on safety, alarms, keys and locks.  We constantly have to check whether we are being followed.  How long are we going to live like this?  While some of us stay to endure this, others are emigrating by their thousands.  In an overseas newspaper, one front page headline read, "People are dying to come to South Africa".  Internationally we have been singled out for our high crime rates.  The hijacking, the heists, the rapes, the robberies are taking us into a downward spiral.  How are we going to bring the crime rate down?  Something needs to be done.  Even while I am speaking, crime is occurring.

The reality for South Africans is the vast gap between the haves and the have nots.  The chasm widened significantly during the ~Apartheid~ years.  Efforts must be made to narrow this division.  I want to stress here today that quick fix solutions are not the answer.  We need to create an environment of safety, where people do not have to constantly watch their backs.

The challenge for everyone is to work towards making South Africans' future so attractive for the majority that the community at large will flush out and dispose of the criminals.  We all have a contribution to make.  People are already losing faith in some of us.  It is really time to rid our society of these criminals.  We need to make a difference, to let the children play in the parks again.  Women need not to be afraid to walk in the streets, and the old need to be protected in their confined places.  We need to walk without fear, we have a right to it.

Chairperson, South Africa must learn from the Government of Saudi Arabia.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MR M F REHMAN:  Where crime, theft, rape and adultery is unheard of.  In Saudi Arabia, if a person is found guilty of murder he is hanged.  If a person is caught stealing and found guilty, his hands are chopped off.

Chairperson, we from the IFP would like to call for a referendum on the death penalty.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order please!

MR M F REHMAN:  Chairperson, we from the IFP would like to call for a referendum on the death penalty.  Let the people decide for themselves.  That is democracy.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I am getting a yellow card ready for someone on my left-hand side.

MR M F REHMAN:  In conclusion, I would like to end with this quote:

	Your hurt comes not from what others do to you, but from what you choose to do with their actions.

I thank you.  We support the vote.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  We thank you.  I have got a brief announcement here.  There is a wailing vehicle outside, the registration number is ND 264235.  Will the owner attend to that vehicle please.  Our next speaker is the hon Mr Rajbansi.  For five minutes.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  South Africa can quite correctly boast of having one of the finest Constitutions in the world.  But, we must also realise, Mr Chairman, that the institution that is the greatest protector of the Constitution is our security establishment.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR A RAJBANSI:  We must always ensure that the country has confidence in the security establishment, and from within the establishment and from within the political arm we must not do anything to destroy the morale of the security force establishment of this country.  The South African Police Service is an important component of that security establishment.

When you walk around in the street nowadays, this establishment's respect is being lost.  What good report can we give today in this debate about the decrease in crime, to the extent that we do not occupy the top three places in the country in provincial comparison is clouded by allegations from within the Force of nepotism and of racism.  I have an article from the Tribune, "Senior police officers set to quit after years of racial discrimination".  Regular reports of police involvement in crime.

All the good work that is being done by our Police Force is being destroyed, is being overshadowed by these allegations.  The time is now ripe that the National Ministry, the Provincial Ministry and the National and the Provincial Commissioners take joint action so that we can get rid of all these allegations of nepotism and racism.

I want to deal with transformation and the upward mobility of those officers from communities that are the most seriously disadvantaged.  I want to tell the Provincial Commissioner that although he may not have the power in terms of the Constitution, but if he does not sign a promotion it cannot be effected.  We need the top management of our police establishment, in this Province, to undergo immediate change.

I have a copy of a letter sent to a friend from a lady who works in the Commissioner's office.  She is the wife of an important member in the Commissioner's team.  In this letter she refers to us as "Coolies" or "Bantus".

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR A RAJBANSI:  I have the copy.  Somebody printed it out of a computer.  There is an inquiry as to who stole that copy.  Husband and wife thinks alike.  They will never think separately, and we want an investigation immediately.  If members of the minority community, who played an important role in respect of the development of this country are referred to as "coolies," in the head office, by somebody who works there, then that cancer must be rooted out of the Commissioner's office now.  Any other cancer must also be rooted out.

I want to deal with what the hon Mr JJ Jeffery stated.  I want to say that in spite of ~Apartheid~ we have had excellent Judges in this country and are internationally respected.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR A RAJBANSI:  We also know, Mr Chairman, that there were certain Judges who found people guilty for the same crimes.  If you were a black African, coloured or Indian you went to the gallows, and if you were white you did not go to the gallows.  Those are on record.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member has one minute left.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Those are on record.  Those Judges should be given the voluntary severance packages.  I am afraid to take a certain matter to court now with the present Judges, because I know that if it comes from Rajbansi it will be thrown out.  I know one or two of the Judges.  I know the prejudices.  What we need in this country now, Mr Chairman, is tough gun legislation.  Let us say when the soul of a nation was suppressed for 400 years you are going to have social violence, when separate development was not equal.  Let us clinically and from a sociological point of view understand why there is social crime.  There is social crime because people have been impoverished.  I do not want to deal with the pre-years.  I know that before 1994 when reform started, a circular, by mistake landed on my desk and stated, from the Ministry, white Ministry, that all attacks on white people must be regarded as serious crime and must be reported immediately.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is over.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  We thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The Committee of Supply shall now adjourn until five to two, at which stage the hon Mrs Gasa will take the Chair.  The Committee will adjourn.

	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE SUSPENDED AT 12:51
	RESUMED AT 13:58

RESUMED DEBATE: VOTE 9: DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY AND SECURITY

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon members, I was told that we would start at five to two.  I was busy with other committees.  Let us resume.  I wish now to call the hon Mr M B Gwala for 12 minutes.

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  Chairperson, and the hon House, I am so grateful to have such an opportunity, although the Minister is not here, of debating the Safety and Security vote.  I congratulate the hon Minister ~Inkosi~ N J Ngubane for the well prepared document he has presented to us as the policy speech of his Department.

When I was approached to debate on this vote, I found it very difficult to decide which subject is relevant for this debate.  The current hot issues in safety and security are those of en masse transfers, transformation, promotions and salary grading.  We are very concerned about this, because it is going to cause a serious crack amongst the Police Force members.  Other members are going to deal with these issues.  I will discuss three issues, that is crime, and the constitutional backlog which creates serious problems for this Department, and the TRC which is a threat to our lasting peace and stability.

It is unfortunate that our new South Africa has inherited an  administration that was characterised by misdemeanour, corruption and the tyranny of successive ~Apartheid~ Governments.  With this in mind, one cannot always use this to justify the major and minor mishaps of our democratically elected Government and its line Ministries.

The ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party is deeply concerned about the crime wave in this country.  This crime wave cuts across both political and social spheres.  It is not one man's problem and not only one man that has a box of holistic solutions to solve it.  Although we are all concerned and disturbed by the crime wave in our country, I will be bold in saying that the buck stops at the Government's door.  They will have to take drastic, harsh and decisive measures in dealing with this situation.

It is a pity that we are talking at a time when our Government is playing cat and mouse with the issue of practical solutions in solving crime.  Members will recall that the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government issued a "Discussion Document" on its perspective on traditional leadership that deals with customary law courts.  The National Government's understanding of this document is shocking.

It is obvious that the National Government's aim is to abolish traditional courts, neglecting the fact that the level of crime in rural areas is far lower than in urban areas.

I note the loss of hope one sees in our people.  The economic decline, poverty, high unemployment and homelessness which poses a serious threat, not only to the life and existence of men, but also to the very Constitution of the country we are proud of.  Our people do not sleep or eat sheer political slogans, they need to experience the satisfaction of their basic needs.  For how long are we going to create elite after elite by using taxpayers' money wrongly?

Maybe I should pause and remind members that we are in Africa.  We are Africans as well.  Africans who have their own African way of life that could be adapted to the political, economical and social changes of our times.  Real change does not mean compromising your values, but it means adapting them with the present time.  I indicated earlier on that in spite of the economic, political and social differences in rural and urban areas, the level of crime in urban areas is far higher than in rural areas.

I may not have all the solutions, but my recognition of the fact that our country, as diverse as it is, needs nothing else except the devolution of powers to the level of the Government where they can best be utilised.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  There is a serious constitutional backlog in this country.  This might sound a bit opportunistic for me to mention, but it is so.  Even those of us who are expected to uphold the present Constitution seem to be lenient, if not soft on criminals.

The devolution of power to the provinces is the solution to this problem of crime.  It is a solution to so many issues and serious problems which plague the National Department of Safety and Security, regarding promotions and en masse transfers.  The conflict between the National Department of Safety and Security and Provincial Ministries is a direct result of the intervention of the National Government in the affairs of the provinces.

I wish to thank the way in which the summit was conducted in Durban late last year.  I refer to the National Crime Prevention Strategy meeting which was very successful.  We also hope that the proposals that were made there will be translated into a programme of action.

Going back to the devolution of powers.  Are you aware, Chairperson, that according to the National Constitution, the Provincial Minister is just a toothless Minister with no powers, so limited that the Provincial Commissioner has more powers?  This only happens in the Police Department.  The question is why?  In other words, in the case of KwaZulu-Natal, the Provincial Commissioner, Chris Serfontein, has more powers than the Minister ~Inkosi~ Ngubane.  The IFP has called for more policing powers to the provinces, but the call has fallen on deaf ears.

The IFP says that the country's Constitution is flawed because of things such as this.  This was done purposely to castrate ~Inkosi~ Ngubane and the IFP led Government in KwaZulu-Natal.  I am not talking about physical castration.  I mean political castration or emasculation, Chairperson.  [LAUGHTER]

Lastly, Chairperson, I would like to discuss, briefly, the violence in KwaZulu-Natal.  There will be no peace and stability without real reconciliation between and amongst the parties.  I intend talking about the TRC activities and peace at the same time.

The ANC has attempted to smear His Excellency Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and to smear the image of the IFP by blaming us for the violence.  This has been going on through ANC meetings, the media and now through the TRC, which is being used by the same ANC led Government to destroy the IFP.  The ANC cannot do both.  You cannot talk peace with the IFP and destroy it, by using the TRC.

The hon Minister here, I refer to Minister Ndebele, to describe what I have said, is how Janus operates.

You will recall that before the 1994 general elections, the ANC conducted a very high profile international campaign urging the world to believe that it was only violence that could bring about change in South Africa.  Violence and intimidation were the tools and they even urged our teenagers to use them to bring about the downfall of the former Government.  Their whole approach was a typical revolutionary approach, and they did what they could to spread the slogan, "Every patriot a combatant, and every combatant a patriot".

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  I accept that Makhaye wrote that.  It is a matter of history now, that not only did they mobilise blacks for violence, but they specifically mobilised blacks for violence against the IFP.  Dr Buthelezi, as the leader of the IFP, was targeted for assassination.  The Deputy President of the ANC, the hon Mr Thabo Mbeki, publicly agreed to this, although he pointed out that senior ANC officials had no knowledge of this.  The former KwaZulu Police and the South African Police Forces uncovered a number of plots to kill Dr Buthelezi.  Dr Buthelezi was made fair game and stigmatised by the ANC as, "a snake that must be hit on the head".

The assassination of the human rights lawyer Griffiths Mxenge in 1981, and the subsequent assassination of his wife Victoria in 1985 became the catalyst for ~Inkatha~ and UDF conflict, and the rationale by which the ANC and the UDF legitimised and justified the targeting of the IFP leaders and members.  Inflammatory speeches delivered at Mxenge's funeral at which ~Inkatha~ and its leader was denounced as "the enemy" were used to launch anti-~Inkatha~ hostilities.

The funeral at which an apparently innocent man was necklaced for being a suspected informer also became the launching pad for a sustained military onslaught against the IFP.

That the ANC never had the political guts to issue a disclaimer and come clean on the matter, raises serious questions about the ANC's sense of integrity and moral rectitude.  It raises questions about its commitment to peace, on the one hand, and the use of the TRC to cripple the image of the IFP and its leadership on the other hand.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member is left with two minutes.

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  The IFP demands an unconditional apology from the ANC for falsely blaming the IFP for the murder of Victoria Mxenge in 1985.  The IFP also demands an unequivocal retraction from the ANC for its series of past innuendos insinuating the IFP was responsible for her death.

More than 450 IFP leaders have died at the hands of political assassins.  Thousands of IFP supporters have been murdered simply because they are members of the IFP.  Reading about how they died makes you realise just how horrific revolutionary killing is.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time has run out.

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  Okay.  I thank you.  I will still talk further.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

MR B H CELE:  Point of order, Madam Chair.  I do not know how relevant and how proper it is to continue with this debate without the Minister, who is expected to respond at the end of this debate.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.  Can I quickly assist you there.  When I took the chair I was informed that we would start at five to two, and true to that, I started.  The Chief Whips have just explained to me that an emergency Cabinet meeting has just been called.  I have requested that they should quickly decide and then come back to me, because truly what you are saying, they also share the same concerns.  The Minister has to be present here.  Even the hon member Mr Gwala, when he started his debate, raised that concern.  It is unfortunate that he had to speak without the hon Minister present.  So I am just waiting for a directive as to whether we continue or what we do.  It would have been wrong for me to stop Mr Gwala just because the Minister was not present.  That is why I allowed him to continue.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Madam Chair, thank you very much.  If I may just intervene there.  You are quite correct.  There is an emergency Cabinet meeting.  They are about to wind up, but I have been requested to take notes on behalf of the hon Minister.  So I am quite sure that whatever contribution the hon members are making, he will respond to it if there is a need to respond to it.  Thank you.  The Commissioner will also be here in a short while, Madam Chair, but we have General van der Merwe present, who is taking notes on behalf of the administration.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order!  Can I then ask the House to adjourn for seven minutes, and then we will ring the bells.  Thank you.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, I certainly have not been party to any discussions on this issue, but I think the work of the House should continue.  We cannot adjourn and resume our work at the whim of Cabinet.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I would like to say that it comes from your side, that there is a concern that we cannot continue, and from this side of the House, the Minister has given us assurance.  I agree with you that we cannot stop the business of the House, but as far as I am concerned, I thought five minutes or seven minutes was not too long, just to give them a break.  After the seven minutes we will definitely continue, whether they are present or not.  We will have a Minister who is going to continue taking notes.  Thank you.  The Committee will be suspended for five minutes.  Thank you.

	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE SUSPENDED FOR FIVE MINUTES
	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE RESUMED

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The business of the Committee resumes.  We call upon now the hon Mrs J Downs for five minutes.

MRS J M DOWNS:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  If I can start off by just saying a brief word about the transformation of the Police Services.  I would like here to actually paraphrase the National Minister, the hon Minister Mufamadi, when he was at Truro House dealing with the police unions who were at the time threatening to strike over the slow pace of the police transformation.  He said that part of the problem of transformation and the slowness he could actually take the responsibility for, because the policies were not put in place to fast track it.  There are certain things that have to be circumvented in order to produce a promotion.  For example, in the senior positions a policeman will have to have served for a number of years before they can even apply for promotion.  This is part of the problem.

I would like to actually call upon the National Minister to set out clear policy guidelines that will allow for a fast track promotion transformation process to take place.  To my knowledge, this has not yet been done.  I believe that this is the very root of the slow pace of transformation.

Having said that, I also would like to bring to this House's attention a report that appeared in one of the newspapers over the weekend, where, when a survey was done on corruption and so on, it was said that the police are 30% more likely to commit a crime than the general population.  This is where we are today, and this is why our crime rate is still unacceptably high.  We need to certainly congratulate the Minister and the Commissioner on what they have achieved.  Our crime rate has dropped, and that we have to acknowledge.  But certainly, when there is a report that 30% higher than the general population is the likelihood of policemen committing a crime then something is really rotten in the state of Denmark.

We have to actually do everything and apply pressure to root out corruption.  This is where this House and the Portfolio Committee needs to take up the powers that it has been given and insist on good discipline, proper procedures and rooting out corruption in order to attend to the crime rate which is unacceptably high.  It is unacceptable that a taxi war can break out at the High Court.  It is unacceptable that the police were caught short, according to one report, that they were not there on time and that they were not prepared for a volatile situation.  That is unacceptable.  It is unacceptable that crime continues to rage the way it does.  It is unacceptable that a German tourist is killed on New Years Eve at the beach front when we are trying our level best to promote tourism in this country.  Those things are unacceptable.

AN HON MEMBER:  There were six killed.  Five Africans.

MRS J M DOWNS:  It is unacceptable that anybody is killed.  Any murder is unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable.  If I can just then use the rest of my time to focus on one area which I believe has been totally neglected.  That is the fight against crimes against women and children.

I have to raise this again and again and again, because it appears that there is no political will, both within the Legislature and outside of it in the Police Services, to actually get to grips with this.  If I can raise again, we need to have our Children's Commissioner.  You know, KwaZulu-Natal has an opportunity to pioneer something here, and we need that Commissioner.  We need to get that person in place to fight against the ravages that are happening against our children in this Province, and in a larger brief in the country.

According to a newspaper report this morning, child abuse cases are increasing at a rate of 36% a year.  That is totally unacceptable.  When I read through this report, it is not literally reported on separately, but if I can tell you that rape has gone down by just 0,8%, and when there is a rape that occurs every 38 seconds in this country, that is unacceptable.  Intercourse with a girl under the prescribed age has increased by 40%.  That is unacceptable.  Indecent assault has increased by 8,8%, unacceptable.  Cruelty or ill-treatment towards children has increased by 5,4%, unacceptable.  Kidnapping has increased by 13,7%, unacceptable.  We need to develop the will to deal with these issues.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member has got two minutes.

MRS J M DOWNS:  And to put in place measures that will actually combat it.  I have been serving on the Provincial Crime Prevention Committee, and it is a good step in the right direction, but I believe that Committee is not going far enough.  We have started to do some things about gathering reports, and gathering what is already there, and some kind of networking process.  But in order to actually deal with these crimes we need to really attend to prevention.

I am told by the Child Protection Units that in the rural areas, for example, most of the rape of young children occurs when the children are walking to and from school.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member's time is up.

MRS J M DOWNS:  And by educating children to go together in groups they can actually do something.  These are the kinds of measures which we need to take.  Thank you, Madam Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, I did not want to disturb the hon Mrs Downs, but one is truly concerned now, because I think the Cabinet meeting has been concluded.  It is not only the MEC who appears to have lost interest in the debate, it is the entire IFP.  That, I think, is unacceptable.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Madam Chair, I just hope the hon Mrs Cronje will have an understanding of the seriousness of the situation that is before us at the moment.  I do not think there is any problem with the fact that I am present as a member of the Executive, taking down notes.

AN HON MEMBER:  Where are the others?

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  I cannot speak for the others, but I speak for the members of the Cabinet that are not present.  I do not think there is any harm in me sitting here taking down notes, because I will communicate that to my colleague.  I hope that some members on that side of the House will have an understanding of the seriousness of the situation.  I know that my hon colleague the Minister Ndebele has more than a fair understanding of what is transpiring at the moment, and how Cabinet is collectively trying to address the problems that we are experiencing.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Perhaps I would like to explain.  I am making a ruling.  I note the concern raised by Mrs Cronje.  But, however, I also understand Minister Singh's explanation.  I also happen to know that at present, before we adjourned last week Minister Ndebele and that is why Minister Singh says he understands, the taxi violence issue right now has required the attention of some of the members.  You shall have noticed when the hon member Mr Dlamini was in the chair, I was not in.  It was due to the fact that I was attending a Committee meeting where some Taxi Task Team members were present.  If we are serious about the taxi violence, and people have come here to see some members, and they want to address these issues, that has got to be done.  But really, I am beginning to feel that it is unfair that we should say let us not continue with the business of the day.  Let us continue with the business of the day, and the IFP will take note that the other members are not happy, but we are not going to stop for the second time now.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Now I am calling upon the hon Mrs L G Ngcobo to take the floor for six minutes.  Thank you.

MRS L G NGCOBO:  I wish to congratulate the Minister on his presentation of his budget speech, and in spite of the financial problems that he has laid before us, I support the vote.

I wish to talk today about two matters.  One, thank goodness, Mrs Downs has already given figures and drawn our attention to the seriousness of the situation, concerning women and children and violence.  I will not go into that.  I will more or less note some of the things that are happening, and what our Government can do about some of these issues which they actually are not addressing at present.

Violence in our society is all pervasive and multi-faceted.  It affects every aspect of our society.  In the short time I have got, Madam Chair, I am going to highlight the unspeakable violence against women which has become an inescapable feature of all strata of our society.

Women are undermined on the domestic scene and institutionally.  They suffer physically from men who should be protecting them.  They are raped at will, often by people whom they trust.  In this regard alone, we are in the lead throughout the world.  We make the headlines everywhere.  More and more women are killed by men who are closest to them, often for reasons that do not match the offence.  There is not enough determination to eradicate this malady.  It is deep rooted, and embedded in our cultures.  It therefore requires much more focus, with a much more aggressive planned strategy to combat the situation.

It is time that our Government took very serious steps to address the practice.  Women should not be fighting this battle alone.  There should be Government driven campaigns to change attitudes of both men and women.  Men claim a right which they do not have, the right to be superior, and therefore to do as they please with women.  I am talking this time on a generic level, not every man does that, but a lot of men think this way.  Women themselves are conditioned into accepting the situation as God given.  Women are brought up to believe that they should be bullied, that anything can be done to them, and they accept it.

The Government should campaign, and advertise at every given opportunity.  Advertise against the violence, increase public awareness, regardless of the cost, because the cost that society is paying for such crimes far exceeds the cost that it pays for these crimes.  The cost of imprisonment, for instance, the cost incurred when the young are raped and end up maladjusted, the loss of a healthy family life, I doubt if the correct estimate of the cost to society has ever been made.  It is therefore incumbent upon our society to establish a proliferation of counselling centres, first for the women and children victims, and then the sick men themselves.  Working with the Department of Health, the training of counsellors and establishment of counselling centres is priority number one, if society is to attend to this problem.  We need a lot of well run shelters for battered women to escape the immediacy of family violence.  There should be places where women can escape to when life becomes threatening and intolerable within their households.

Our society is diseased, Madam Chair, and we are doing so little to cure the devastation of ~Apartheid~.  We seem to pour large sums of money into the prison services, but so little to restore human mental balance.  A lot of crimes are generated by mental imbalances in society.  Tradition has its role and changes in that front will come less painfully, I hope.  But mental imbalances require immediate and drastic treatment through programmes by the Government.

Tackling these issues, Madam Chair, poses certain fundamental questions with regard to safety on another dimension, which I wish to tackle here.  We have heard in this House of the aspirations of the ANC needing a two-thirds majority with the aim of changing the Constitution of this country.  Constitutional changes are often drastic, intended for extensive surgery.  I must say for the party enjoying a large majority in Government to need an even higher two-thirds majority is very unsettling and frightening, thus reducing the feeling of safety for the subjects.  Two-thirds majority is like a butchers knife in the hands of a party in Government which has shown tendencies in the past of not being that trustworthy.  We are justified in feeling afraid.  The last time a South African Government used this tool with drastic effects was when the Nationalist Government back in 1951, ruthlessly cut off the Cape Coloureds from the franchise.  Whom do the ANC want to cut off?  And from what?  We feel very unsafe.

What is even more worrying, Madam Chair, this type of talk is going on while the ANC have said openly at last, thank goodness for that, in this chamber ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member, wind up.  You have got two minutes left.  Thanks.

MRS L G NGCOBO:  .....just last Friday, that they want the IFP to join the ANC.  This is on top of course, of the six month long drive for a merger.  We of the IFP dread that.  What if they use their new found powerful tool to do exactly those things that are basic principles for the IFP?  What if the new powerful Government lops off the provinces and in one deadly stroke declares a centrist state as against our much treasured federal ideas?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member time is up.

MRS L G NGCOBO:  One sentence please, Madam Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS L G NGCOBO:  This is a threat to the safety of the whole country and its people.  We would like to be reassured that the ANC is happy to keep the Constitution that they were so happy to negotiate with the other parties without the IFP.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member's time is up.

MRS L G NGCOBO:  We have accepted it in spite of many reservations.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member's time is up.

MRS L G NGCOBO:  My heart goes out to all those women who suffer endlessly from humiliation, Madam Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS L G NGCOBO:  Because you loved it.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order!  Can we now call upon the hon member Mr J D Mkhwanazi.  You have got five minutes sir.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  On this Africa Day, I would have liked all the members, particularly those of African descent, to sit and listen and not to disturb the old man.  I have the honour to speak after such powerful ladies.

Madam Chair, I was happy to hear the hon Mr Gwala say I am an African.  On this Africa Day I would like to say, it is obvious that I am an African.  On this day I am proud to say Africa for Africans, and Africans for humanity, and humanity for God.

Madam Speaker, [Madam Speaker, this thing we are talking about is extremely difficult.  Even if I can sit down, because it has already been said].

There are problems with the police, with the Commissioner and with everybody, but the point I want to make here is that the police can do the best they can, but without the assistance of the community they will not succeed.  The point I want to make is that we as a community should do everything possible to assist the police.

For instance, an example, on 2 May my granddaughter was walking with a friend in Westwalk.  She was mugged and her purse was taken in broad daylight, with many people around her.  Nobody raised a finger to help her.  Two days ago my daughter was walking along Soldier's Way with her friend.  Two young men, at knife point, demanded her watch and she was smart enough to give it to them.  Her friend, they demanded her earrings from her, with the threat that if she did not give them to them they would cut off her ears and take the earrings.  She gave the earrings to them, and there were people around them.  What kind of society is this?

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  What kind of a society is this where we are talking about protecting women.  There were women around there, they did not even cry, at least to raise the alarm.  They just looked at the children being brutalised.

I want to go on to the issue, which is also dogging our Province, the question of the appointments, the mass, what do you call it?

AN HON MEMBER:  En masse transfers.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  En masse transfers and things like that.  I think we must look at that too.  What I am concerned about there is that our people are going to be divided on racial lines once again, from what I have seen: We went out as a Committee to observe.  Whoever is responsible the officers of Asian origin are just placed or appointed above those of African origin, and there is a lot of noise about it.  It is not only because there are trade unions.  Whoever is responsible for making these appointments must be careful not to stir racial violence amongst our people, because it is there.  Unfortunately those who are given positions also take advantage of those positions.

I would like to appeal to the Minister and the Commissioner to look into that carefully.  The argument is that those people have more education and more experience.  How do you expect those people who were not allowed by law to do those jobs, or to get education, to get that education, because they were deprived of it by law?  So when you talk about experience and qualifications, it must be relative, Mr Minister.  I thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much for sparing us a few minutes.  We now come to the hon member Mr J Waugh.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Madam Chair, when debating this budget one does it with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, the crime situation in our country is unacceptably and totally out of hand.  On the other hand, when one looks at the budget, it indicates that this House cannot do much about the situation.

One asks oneself is it worth our while to, in this chamber, discuss this issue?  Experience has also taught us that on some of the occasions where the Provincial Minister took a stand on an issue, he was overruled by the National Commissioner.  What can this House do?

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Just sit down.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR J N C WAUGH:  Madam Chair, on numerous occasions we find that people and supporters say that they would like to keep back their tax money and give it to the South African Police Service, and that is because of the attitude the people on the right have as far as the crime is concerned.

We in this House also submitted a Bill in this regard.  We submitted a Bill called the Promotion of Efficient Policing and Police Community Relations Act.  This Bill makes provision for a permanent commission to be established with the objective of promoting police efficiency, and the promotion of stable and peaceful communities.  This Bill, may I just say, Madam Chair, has also been framed within the terms of the Constitution, the terms being section 206(3) and (5) of the Constitution.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR J N C WAUGH:  We see it that this commission will at least assist us in improving the crime situation in our Province.  

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  How much will it cost?

MR J N C WAUGH:  Mr Minister, take this opportunity to exercise your powers, and ensure that such a commission be put in place.  Do not be accused again of not using the powers that you have to ensure that crime is being dealt with in the Province.

Madam Chair, it is one thing for the hon Bheki Cele to blame the Provincial Commissioner.  He, in my opinion, has misused this House to launch a personal attack on the Provincial Commissioner.  On a few occasions the Commissioner has not attended the Portfolio Committee, and Mr Bheki will know very well why?

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR J N C WAUGH:  Because on a few occasions the hon Mr Bheki apologised to the Commissioner for him not getting notice of that meeting.  May I just also say that on numerous occasions these meetings are called at such short notice that some of his own party members are not able to attend the meetings.  

AN HON MEMBER:  Once.

MR J N C WAUGH:  May I also just say that I think the Chairman of the Portfolio Committee was totally out of order today.  I do not think that any politician, Madam Chair, and I mean any politician, whoever he or she may be, should use this House to attack any senior Government official in the manner that happened here today.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR J N C WAUGH:  Madam Chair, may I also say, especially if that senior official cannot defend himself.  Some people might even say that this was a cowardly act.  The National Party has full confidence in the Provincial Commissioner and his top structure.  The Premier has at a media briefing said that they also have full confidence in the Commissioner, and all the members of the Cabinet agreed.  I do call upon the members of the Cabinet within the ANC to talk to their colleague, the hon Mr Bheki Cele.  Does he agree with what the Cabinet said, if it is true what was said at the media briefing afterwards?

I ask myself why the Chairman did this?  But can I tell you why?  Madam Chair, our country has recently been classified the most murderous country in the world by the World Health Organisation.  Not because of the Provincial Commissioner, but because of the inability of the ruling political party that that hon member, who is the Chairman of this Portfolio Committee, belongs to.

Let me just quote a few figures comparing the period 1 January 1990 to 31 October 1990, and then compare that to the same period in the year after the election.  Armed robbery increased by 15,78%.  Fraud increased by 10,73%.  Malicious damage to property by 7,34%.  The year after the general election the general crime rate increased by 5%.  That for sure does not prove to be a good track record for members on that side of the House.

The hon Mr John Jeffery accused the South African Police Service for not using their resources correctly.  I say that they do not have sufficient resources, and that is the reason - not that they are not using them correctly.  The money that is allocated at the national level by the ANC/SACP Government is just not enough to adequately deal with crime in our country.  We must admit that.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR J N C WAUGH:  Contrary to what the members on my right say, let us thank all the members from the highest ranking officer to the lowest ranking officer in the South African Police Service for the job they are doing, under very difficult circumstances.  I also include the Minister in that.

I agree with what the hon member Mr Ntombela said as far as the Minister was concerned.  I think the Minister is in a very difficult position.  Where the Minister takes decisions, and acts on those decisions and then he is repudiated by the National Commissioner, but we do know that he has certain powers of going about it, according to the Constitution.  Once again, I ask the Minister that he now uses those guidelines he has within the Constitution and actually deals with crime.

Madam Chair, before I close, I would also just like to come back to the taxi violence.  On numerous occasions, and I think in the press it was maintained that last week on Thursday, because of the late arrival of the police, lives were lost.  But that is not the information I received.  The information I received due to the presence of the police at the court the plans of one or the
other taxi associations could not be carried out, and that is why the shooting occurred.  Not as some members have mentioned and  blamed it on the South African Police Service.  I do not think that that, as such, is true and therefore we must always guard against jumping to conclusions when reading about these incidents.  These incidents are serious and we should not easily criticise and jump to conclusions.

Madam Chair, may I just say in closing.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Madam Chair, I rise and ask the hon member if he will take a question?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can you take a question, hon member?

MR J N C WAUGH:  Madam Chair, if there is time, when I have completed my speech I will take a question.  Madam Chair, in closing, let me just call on the IFP and the Minister, to take strong action against crime in this Province.  If the ANC do not want to support you, Mr Minister, we on this side, and I am sure most of the other members in this chamber will do so.  Let us now take strong action against crime and go forward.  Thank you.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Hon Chair, the question that I want to pose to the hon member is, could he reveal to this House who his source is about that information, because it seems to me it directly contradicts what the police themselves were in fact saying about that terrible shooting?  It would be most useful if he could tell this House who his source is that gave him this information.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Madam Chair, in a response to that question, I will not reveal it to the House.  What I will do is I will  reveal it to the people that are busy with the investigation.  I am sure that they will find it very useful.  May I just say that when we, on this side of the House, receive information like this, we do reveal it to the people that are responsible for the investigation and they use it in the manner it should be used.  So thank you for that, but we do that in normal circumstances.

AN HON MEMBER:  So when the people report to you the police can report to you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The next speaker is the hon Mr Phillip Powell for 15 minutes.

MR P POWELL:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I would like to congratulate the hon Minister ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, and his Department on the presentation of this their annual budget.  I would also express appreciation for the approachable and professional manner in which the Secretary, Mr Wynand van der Merwe, has interacted with the Safety and Security Committee.  I would also like to thank the IFP members of the Committee for their enthusiastic participation in this vital Committee.

This year's Safety and Security budget is a sad reflection of the constitutional reality which provinces find themselves in, and the fiscal straightjacket which inhibits any meaningful capacity on the part of provinces to address this vital area of governance.  The systematic removal of provincial power in this area by the Central Government, unaware of the growing irony of its action in denying other role-players the ability to do what they themselves are unable to do is not lost on us all.  Despite the fact that members of other parties are quick to criticise the IFP's constant reinforcement of this position, and dismiss it as politicking.  I would like to quote from an authoritative source inside the ANC to highlight the fact that the apologists for Central Government in his House are out of step with their comrades in other provinces.  I quote:

	It is shocking that station commanders are accountable to the lowest political tier of Government, but Provincial Commissioners are not accountable to provincial Governments.  It is difficult not to see this as a deliberate attempt to marginalise provincial Government.  Both in terms of operational activities and political direction, authority should be decentralised to the lowest level and consequently the role of MECs should be clarified.  The Shobashobane Commission has already indicated in terms of which mechanisms political authority should be devolved and the process of decentralisation of policing functions should be performed at the lowest level.

The person speaking is the hon MEC for Safety and Security of the Free State, D A Kganare.

I read this to demonstrate to people in this House that our concerns in this regard are not driven by some party political agenda, but by the very real position that provincial Governments are powerless to act when their interests are directly affected.  I only have to point to the observations made by the hon Cele to reinforce my point.  However outraged we may be at the performance or lack of it by the senior police management in this Province, at the first sign of any effort on our part to hold them accountable they run for the cover of the National Minister or National Commissioner's figurative skirts.

It is this realisation which has led the Province to allocate such a meagre amount to this Ministry.  The budget does not make provision for the expansion of staff and the building of capacity in the Ministry to meaningfully oversee policing in our Province.  The IFP views this situation as extremely unfortunate, and predicts that the limited oversight power which the Province enjoys will be further eroded by the lack of capacity in the Ministry.  One only has to visit other provinces and see the considerable capacity which they have developed in this area.  In failing to fund these functions of the Provincial Ministry, we are abandoning the only remaining area of provincial competence.  The actual consequence of what we are doing is more power to Boland Bank headquarters, and less to this House, and we are unable to meaningfully ensure that service is not just a word in the name of this organisation.

It is therefore with some alarm that we heard during the budget hearings that some R2,8 million in foreign aid, which was given to the Province after the dissolution of the Police Board, and specifically earmarked for assisting community policing forums, had been reabsorbed by the Treasury, apparently under false pretexts.  We hope that this matter will be addressed, and the money forthwith reallocated to the departmental budget, and perhaps more importantly, spent in assisting CPFs as soon as possible.  A Ministry as cash strapped as this cannot be robbed of the meagre resources at its disposal.

The reality of course is that the provision of policing in our Province is entirely centrally funded, and the provincial budget has little to do with actual service delivery.  The Central Government continues to hopelessly underfund the SAPS.  The shortfall in vehicles and equipment alone in this budget is estimated to be in excess of R2 billion, and the shortfall is said to grow to some R5 or R6 billion over the next three or four years.  The present budget is estimated to be R675 million less than the absolute minimum amount required by the police just to enable them to carry out their most basic services.  This does not reflect what a positive position would be, but more a worst case scenario.  It should therefore come as no surprise that public outcry over crime levels continues unabated.  It is not sufficient to dismiss them, as some do on the other side, as political expediency.  The poll results will tell what the people of South Africa really think about the Government's performance to fight crime in 1999.

The SAPS management have themselves made it clear that they cannot work within the current budget, and told provincial delegates as much in a briefing at the NCOP.  The Government is going to have to act decisively to address this issue if it wishes to halt the growing international perception with its important consequences for investor confidence that it is soft on crime.

When we attended the NCOP briefing in Cape Town, I am sad to say that for the second year in a row the SAPS were not able to provide us with any details about provincial allocations.  It is wholly unacceptable that for the second year we are treated in this manner.  The contempt in which we are held as provincial representatives, when it comes to Safety and Security, was clearly demonstrated to us once again down in Cape Town.  We are expected to rubber stamp a budget which we have not seen, this cannot continue and it is high time that this House made its voice heard in this regard.

I would like to turn to policy and management issues.  One of the important secondary tasks of the Committee has been to send task teams to various flash points in the Province to attempt to deal with violence.  The MPs who have participated have gone beyond the call of duty in trying to address these difficulties, and their actions deserve the support of this House.  Sadly the Committee continues to receive reports of abuses allegedly carried out by elements within the security forces.  An alarming example of this being the report concerning the assault of ~Inkosi~ Zwelembango Khoza of Eshowe by members of the SANDF operating despite many assurances from the Provincial Commissioner over the years, without members of the SAPS present.  ~Inkosi~ was savagely assaulted, tortured and tubed by the SANDF members in his homestead in front of his family, and thrown in the cells at Eshowe Police Station until he was released with no charges being laid.

Madam Chair, this is particularly outrageous, given the fact that ~Inkosi~ is the direct descendant of General Chingwayo, who was the leader of ~Inkosi~ Shaka's forces at the Battle of Isandhlwana.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR P POWELL:  Imagine the outrage if an ANC mayor of some small town or even the MD of some white run company had been assaulted in his home in front of his children.  I am sure that the hon Mr Makhaye would have been the first to start howling on the radio in outrage at what had happened.

There has been a disturbing reoccurrence of these type of incidents over the years brought to this House, and I am at a loss to explain why we, and here I particularly refer to the ANC who seem unable to critically evaluate the performance of National Minister Modise, are so silent on this important issue of human rights.

The IFP is gravely concerned about the lack of pace of restructuring the Police Force, and we would like to identify with the concern expressed about the position of Commissioner Khanyile.

We have noted with growing anger the reports which have reached our Committee about the flagrant disregard with which our Minister's opinions have been treated by the SAPS management when it comes to the appointment process.  It is ironic that this House, its Committees and a Minister of this Province are both ignored by the Provincial and the National Commissioner.  We must be honest and acknowledge that our impotence to hold them to account is a direct reflection of the constitutional position in which provinces find themselves.  We ask General Khanyile to be patient for a little longer.  As a former KwaZulu police officer of enormous talent, he enjoys the support of the majority of the people in this Province, and we hope that soon he will be occupying the PC's office in Boland Bank Building.  If rumours in the corridors of power are anything to go by, that should be sooner rather than later.

Madam Chair, I would like to turn to the vexed area of political interference by ANC Ministers who are members of this House in non-line function responsibilities.  We have already heard in this House, outrage at the interference by the hon Minister of Health, Dr Mkhize, in policing in Richmond.  This was echoed by the presiding Judge himself.  I must now turn to yet another example of this disturbing practice and refer to a letter sent out by the hon Minister of Transport, Minister S'bu Ndebele, on Friday night, in which he summoned the security forces to a meeting with himself to discuss taxi violence, and I have it on good information, without consulting with the Provincial Minister of Safety and Security.

This is a disturbing practice, and can only lead to misunderstanding.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  On a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  There is a point of order.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  On a point of order.  It is a point of information.  The Premier, ~Inkosi~ Ngubane are aware of what you are talking about.  The Premier was aware of that meeting and we have just been discussing it.  That meeting stemmed out of a special Cabinet meeting here.

AN HON MEMBER:  That is not a point of order.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  It was agreed by the Premier and all of us, that that should take place.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, are you asking me to sit on a point of order or a point of information?

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  No, when what I have said is being distorted, I have got a right to correct it, and the member must withdraw that.

AN HON MEMBER:  No.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The point has been taken.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member, point taken.  Continue.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I am willing to unequivocally say in this House that I have consulted with both the Premier and the Minister.  The Premier informed me that he was informed post facto by the hon Minister who has now himself misled the House.  Secondly, I have approached ~Inkosi~ Ngubane and he has given me his assurance that he was not informed.  So I would ask this House to investigate the fact that a Minister is misleading us here, and I take the strongest exception, because this is not the first time that this particular hon Minister has misled this House.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  On a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can I make a ruling.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I want to finish my speech.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can I make a ruling on this issue.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  No, on a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  It is a point of order, Mr Minister?

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  Yes, a point of order, because the Premier is here.  The meeting took place at 8 o'clock in the evening.

AN HON MEMBER:  What is the point of order?

MR P POWELL:  What is the point of order?

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  No, no, it is a point of order.

MR P POWELL:  Read the Rules, Minister.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order!

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  The member has got his informers and this time they have completely misdirected him.

MR P POWELL:  It is not a point of order.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  The Premier is here, he can clear the matter.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!  I am going to ask members, if they stand on a point of order, it should be a point of order.  But here it was information.  I will make a ruling, and the ruling will be announced when proper investigations have been made.  However, explanations have been given.  Can the hon member continue with his speech.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, mine is a point of order.  The hon Mr Powell said that a Minister, and he was clearly referring to the hon Minister Ndebele, has misled this House.  That is unparliamentary, and I request that he withdraws that statement.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I have made a ruling and I have said the results of the ruling will have to be announced.  Therefore I am asking Mr Powell to continue with his speech.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, with respect, mine was a new point.  Your ruling is related to another matter.  Mine was on the point of order, that the hon Mr Powell said that the hon Minister Ndebele, because he was clearly referring to him, was misleading the House.

AN HON MEMBER:  It is not unparliamentary.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  And you have made no ruling on that issue.  I request that the hon Mr Powell withdraws that statement.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mr Powell.

MR V A VOLKER:  Madam Chair, on a point of order.  I would like to point out that it is not a point of order for anyone to rise on a point of explanation while a member is speaking.  A point of order has to deal with the parliamentary order, and not what is being said, to correct or to whatever, to respond to while a member is speaking.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR V A VOLKER:  And therefore, Madam Chair, I would like to point out that the correct procedure in dealing with the point of order is to limit it to the order procedure of the House.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I crave the indulgence of this House.  I cannot allow this debate to continue.  I have given my word that we will look into this matter and only then, with all the information at hand will the member be requested to withdraw if what he said was misleading.  Over to you.

MR P POWELL:  Thank you.  Madam Chair, unless the hon Minister in question has assumed the mantle of the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Safety and Security and the Minister of Local Government, I believe it was not his line function responsibility to unilaterally call a meeting of ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I would like the hon member to continue with his speech.

MR P POWELL:  I am reading from my speech, Madam Chair.  I did anticipate this kind of strenuous objection from the Minister.  This is a disturbing practice and can only lead to misunderstandings.

Madam Chair, the vexed issue of the taxi violence is of such importance that we cannot have the actions of an individual Minister jeopardising good governance in this Province.  The point which I am making, and I wish that the hon Minister will take it in that spirit, is that we have a Government of Provincial Unity, and his responsibility as a member of that Government is to work with his colleagues to make sure that we address this issue, and it is the responsibility of this House, if the hon Minister does not fulfil that mandate, to bring this respectfully to his attention.

Madam Chair, in the short time which is available to me.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  You do have two minutes. 

MR P POWELL:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I would like to turn to the issue of the Peace Committee.  The IFP, after the 1994 elections, argued vigorously for the preservation of peace structures in this Province in the face of a National Government initiative to defund Peace Committees, and as such, we remain committed to the preservation of this institution in this Province, particularly in the light of the forthcoming election.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, if you would protect me from the hon member over there who is further eroding on my speaking time.

We have made it clear that those calls for the amendment of the legislation which addressed the issue of quorum, are insufficient in dealing with the problems which exist with the Peace Committee.  It is a sad reflection on all the role-players in the Peace Committee that this vital Committee cannot achieve a quorum.  We have therefore endorsed a call on the Minister to bring back to the Committee a package of proposals to breathe new life into this important Committee.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member's time is up.

MR P POWELL:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  Madam Chairperson, may I be allowed to rise on Rule 74, because I have been completely misunderstood.  On Thursday there was a meeting, jointly convened by myself and ~Inkosi~ Ngubane of both our departments.  A resolution came out of that meeting which we have just been presenting to the press.  We are forming a joint co-ordinating committee to deal with the urgent task of taxi violence.

On Friday there was this shooting.  After that shooting incident there was a further blockade by the taxi people in Ladysmith who were stopping the cars and so forth.  In the light of the committee that had been formed, I tried to get in touch with ~Inkosi~ Ngubane.  I could not.  I subsequently contacted the Premier who asked Mr Ngubane to find the Minister.  In the meantime this co-ordinating meeting continued between the Department of Transport and Police, and we are going to continue with that because it has now been endorsed by the full Cabinet.  I am sorry Mr Powell's information is completely out of order, because he does not understand what is going on here.  There is co-operation between the Ministries in dealing with the taxi industry, and we will continue convening the meetings between the Police and Transport to deal with the taxi industry.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can I make this ruling please, members.  The speech by the hon member, Mr Phillip Powell, has raised quite a lot of issues.  He has alluded to having the information which he has.  I am also appealing to you, I am aware of the Rules, and thank you for raising certain Rules, but it does really make it difficult when Ministers answer certain questions.  I am requesting that this issue be discussed in the committee with the Premier, as the Premier's name has been mentioned.  Some Ministers also are aware of this information.  When this has been done and I promise the House that we will make time available, not during this debate, but later on to clear the air.  Everything will be put into proper perspective.  Because if I allow this debate to continue where Ministers explain how they really feel, and the Premier is requested to stand up and explain, it will take the time on this particular debate.

I would like the Whips to assist me with their wisdom.  I would like the Premier, the hon members and the other Ministers to look into this issue, so that when I give you time, we can look just at this particular issue.  It shall have cleared the tone of the Legislature.  It is for that reason that I would like to now usher in the next speaker on the list to speak.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, can I accept the Minister's apology.  He has now confirmed that ~Inkosi~ Ngubane was not informed of the meeting.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  No, no, no.

MR P POWELL:  I, in the spirit of this House, accept his apology.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Please members, please.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  I made no apology.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I have made a ruling.  I have made a ruling.  I have made my requests.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  I have made no apology.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I would like to recognise the Minister.

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  Madam Chair, I rise under Rule 74(2).  The issue I want to address is separate from the one that Madam Chair has ruled on.  I just want to clarify an issue which the hon member Mr Powell raised.  I believe if it is not corrected, it is likely to cause problems with the interpretation of what he was saying.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, on a point of order.

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  I have asked for permission.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  On a point of order.  Chief Whip, yes?

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Madam Chair, may I ask whether the member making a point of order now has had your prior consent to rise under this point?  Because otherwise, Madam Chair, we are making a farce of this House if a member wants to stand up.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  Thank you.  Madam Chair, you will realise that the request has been submitted to you. 

THE CHAIRPERSON:  A request has been submitted, and I made a ruling.  But because of the respect I have for the Minister, I thought he was rising on the same point.  I would like to wrap this issue up, Mr Minister, in the manner in which I have decided to do it.  If I allow any further discussions this issue is going to become messy.  That is why I have made the request which I made.

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  I, with respect, Madam Chair, indicated that it is a completely different issue.  It is not the same issue that was raised that relates to the Minister of Transport and the issue of the Premier.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Is it on the debate on Safety and Security?  Does it emanate from the debate on Safety and Security?

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  It emanates from the same one, but it is a different point altogether.  It is very different, Madam Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Let us hear your point, Mr Minister.

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  I just want to clarify, because sometimes there is a confusion.  The hon member indicated that the Minister of Health has interfered with the functions of the police.  I want to just clarify that issue.  I actually got involved with this issue on the basis of my capacity as a community leader.  That is why I actually was informed of the death of Mr van der Byl.  The issue did not relate to health matters.  It was not an issue for the Minister of Health.  This issue concerned the community.  It was a matter that the members of the ANC had reported to the leader of the ANC in that area.  I on the basis of the fact that there was no ANC structures in Richmond, and no ANC committees in Pietermaritzburg, got involved.  I want the member to understand that very clearly.  I am sure he is confused as to the capacity one gets involved with an issue.  But the fact of the matter here is that it is important to clarify this, because the particular Minister of Safety and Security is my colleague.

MR P POWELL:  Justice Combrinck was not confused.

DR Z L MKHIZE: (Minister of Health):  And on that basis there is no confusion about line function activities.  That is important, Madam Chair.

AN HON MEMBER:  Madam Chair, will the Minister take a question?  [LAUGHTER]  He has just made a speech.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

AN HON MEMBER:  Is he prepared to take a question?  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order!   Clarification has been given.  I have made a ruling.  I am requesting the next hon member, Mr D Makhaye to speak for 15 minutes.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Madam Chair, I will plead with your good offices that we observe a moment of silence for the men and women in blue who have died (in uniform with their boots on) during the course of their duty, even if that time is to be taken from my own time.

MINUTE OF SILENCE

MR D H MAKHAYE:  I thank you.  [LAUGHTER]

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, will the member take a question?

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Madam Chair, I will first respond to some utterances that were made which were quite unfortunate.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, will the hon member take a question?

AN HON MEMBER:  Take what question?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will you take a question, hon member?

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Allow me to consult with Dumisani Makhaye.  Dumisani Makhaye says I must not respond to any question.  [LAUGHTER]

MR P POWELL:  I always knew the member had a split personality.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Madam Chair, I want to comment on the utterances that have been made by four colleagues from the IFP.  Those comments that were made relate to the question of peace in this Province.  It is quite disturbing, Madam Chair, that we are constantly told that if this or that is not done there will be no peace in KwaZulu-Natal.  Peace cannot be blackmailed.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR D H MAKHAYE:  I am happy that the Premier is here, who is the chairman of the IFP, that perhaps we may joke, but there are certain things that you cannot joke about.  The statement that was made by the hon member Baba Ntombela about the death of our leader, Chris Hani, was quite unfortunate.  He was quoting statements made by Sifiso Nkabinde who has now all of a sudden become the friend of three members of the IFP, who left the IFP caucus, went to prison and went to the High Court.

AN HON MEMBER:  Does that worry you?

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Of course I think the IFP of Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi would not agree about ...

AN HON MEMBER:  He was not worried about that.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Of course, what I think we must congratulate this Government on, is that during the past four years this Government of National Unity has actually increased the salaries of the men and women in blue - especially those in the lower ranks by 100%.  There is always talk, especially by the IFP, that this Province does not have sufficient powers.  Let us read from the Constitution:  Section, 206(3):

	Each province is entitled -

	(a)	to monitor police conduct;

That is the task of the MEC.

	(b)	to oversee the effectiveness and efficiency of police service,

	(c)	to promote good relations between police and the community

	(d)	to assess the effectiveness of visible policing, and

	(e)	liaise with the Cabinet member responsible for policing with respect to crime and policing in the province.
  
Section 207(6):

	(6)	if the provincial commissioner has lost the confidence ...

That is important

		....of the provincial executive, that executive may institute appropriate proceedings for the removal or transfer of, or disciplinary action against, that commissioner in accordance with national legislation.

We are not using the powers that we have in this Province.  Of course, we must remember that during the past 20 years the KwaZulu Homeland, just to respect it, had all the powers here.  While in KwaZulu-Natal there was crime everywhere, and there was political violence everywhere, the political violence that took place in KwaZulu policed areas, was actually more than the political violence that took place in areas that were policed by the SAP.

Of course, Madam Chair, crime in this Province and throughout South Africa is a complex issue.  There was a deliberate institutionalised criminalisation of the criminal justice system in this country under National Party rule.  Judges, magistrates, police management and prosecutors were appointed because of their support for the ~Apartheid~ laws in this country.  That led to a culture of impunity.  Crime is also a socio-economic problem, not just a police matter.  Of course the police are supposed to be the cutting edge against crime.  One member here spoke about the ANC undermining the independence of the judiciary.

AN HON MEMBER:  Yes, yes.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Just last week, at Malakazi, a fraudster who was arrested and brought to court was given bail precisely because the IFP organised a rally, a demonstration against the arrest of that fraudster.  On the South Coast, about two years ago, when the murderers of our people at Shobashobane were arrested and brought to book, there were demonstrations, not by the ANC, but by the IFP.  There is nothing that undermines the work more of the prosecutors, Judges and magistrates than what the IFP has been doing all along.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Indeed it is the Judges and magistrates who want to maintain the ~Apartheid~ status quo that are actually undermining their own independence.  The transformation of the criminal justice system must be linked directly to the transformation of society as a whole.  In this country when you fly over parts of South Africa, and you look and see tarred roads and swimming pools, then you know that you are not passing over an African area.  It happens only here in this country.  I have been in more than 50 countries by the way.  I do not have the village mentality.  [LAUGHTER]

Of course, white affluence in the sea of black poverty, this yawning donga between affluence and poverty may become our common grave if we are not careful.  I hope even those who have a village mentality will understand that.  [LAUGHTER]  There are internal tensions within the SAPS.  Many members have talked about that, between the black and white within the SAPS, on the question of promotions.  There is this massive formidable resistance to change.  Corruption is rampant.  There are so many unsolved cases.  I still want to know, Madam Chair, who ordered four raids into my house in 1993/1994 with the specific mission to assassinate me.  I will not rest until I find out who those people are.....

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS.

MR D H MAKHAYE: We are quite happy that statistics show that the majority of serious crime is now under control with the unfortunate exception of child abuse and rape.  It is quite surprising that there are some political parties who refute these statistics.  What are they gaining from this high rate of crime?  If they gain anything, are they not going to....  Like in the private sector, police management must be given specific targets.  If they fail to achieve those targets they must vacate their positions.  There are political parties here that come with slogans like, "Hang the murderer, hang the rapist".  Whenever they think of somebody being hanged they think of an African.

AN HON MEMBER:  That is a lie.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  The same party, the National Party, is campaigning to save the lives of criminals that went to Zimbabwe to bomb and kill people in that country.  That country has got the death sentence.  The same National Party is calling on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this country to intervene on behalf of the South African white mercenaries who are escorting arms to the people's Republic of Angola.  I do not know what has happened to the MPLA leadership, because such criminals must be shot on sight.  [LAUGHTER]

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Yes, there is the death penalty in Angola. They must be shot on sight.  They are only a hunting Safari of African animals.  Even at a glance the sentences that are passed on African criminals far outweigh those sentences that are passed on white criminals.  Unfortunately even the media, some elements in the media, still regard the white life as much more important.  If today, Madam Chair, you look at the newspaper, "Elderly farmer killed at Estcourt".  You already know that if such a story is on a front page, it must be a white farmer.  Criminals who have killed white farmers in this Province have received sentences of more than 25 years.  That is correct, that is good.  But the white farmers who kill our people every day on their farms are not even arrested, they are given free bail.  That is sad and does destroy the culture of impunity in this Province.

Some people were saying we are undermining the judiciary, that we must leave the judiciary as it is, that we must respect institutions, public institutions, but we are not talking about public institutions in general.  We do not want to raise this question of public institutions to a level of abstract philosophical pedestals, because that is the way of running away from the question.  We are talking about the transformation of public institutions that were nurtured and geared towards upholding the ~Apartheid~ crime against humanity.  That we will transform.

Whether some members of the National Party and Democratic Party want it or not, that we will transform.  Sometimes we are blackmailed by saying that the white security forces will overturn this Government.  Let them try.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member is left with two minutes.

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Let them try to do so.  [LAUGHTER]  We will immediately seize power in this country, and we will turn the hon member Wessel Nel into a farm worker on his farm.  [LAUGHTER]  We will turn the hon member Mr Hamilton into a worker.  He will come and request the hon member here to join COSATU.  Let them try, because they think all of a sudden we have become cowards at a time when we are naked among the wolves.  These members here stood up and fought until they achieved victory.

An hon member mentioned, that some of the members of the ANC here, once belonged to the DP.  If they know about the concept of operating behind the enemy lines, that is what these members were doing.  That is what some members in that party are doing.  That is what some members in the National Party and the Democratic Party are still doing here.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR D H MAKHAYE:  Operating behind the enemy lines.  You need to have guts to do so.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  We now call upon the hon Minister to respond.  Mbomvu.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Madam Chair, and the hon House.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank those hon members who have positively debated my budget speech, including those who criticised, but constructively.  I can ensure you, hon members, that the Department will do everything in its power to address these criticisms.

But first and foremost, Madam Chair, I was really very disappointed by the manner in which some of the members approached this debate on my budget speech.  I do not think we are here to attack certain individuals, especially officials.  I agree, we can attack politicians, but attacking officials in this manner, I do not agree with that.  I do not think this is the platform from which to demonstrate or expose your hatred and animosity towards certain officials in any department.  That is why I am saying, Madam Chair, I was very much disappointed.

But anyway, if we consider, what the hon member Mr Cele said.  The member talked about the Minister's absence from some of the Portfolio Committees.  Yes, the problem is that sometimes I am informed at a very late stage.  Mind you, Madam Chair, I am not responsible for only one portfolio, I have so many portfolios.  Therefore, if you inform me today that a meeting is to take place perhaps tomorrow afternoon, I definitely will not attend such a meeting.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION


~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Yes, I can do that, Mr Minister.  And then addressed the issue of some of the people who talk about political interference.  He said as elected people they must interfere.  Yes, as elected people they must interfere, but where?  Even if we are elected, Madam Chair, we are not to interfere with the smooth running of any department.  These things sometimes happen, Madam Chair, even with Portfolio Committees, where some of the people think that they can run a department.  They forget that the Portfolio Committees are there to advise the Minister, and not to tell the Minister what to do and what not to do.  They are there to advise.

AN HON MEMBER:  Oversight.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  If they think they can run the department, oh well, we are sorry about that.  Really, we are sorry about that.

He also went on and criticised the police for their involvement in criminal activities.  In fact, we have done something about this.  If police are found guilty they are usually arrested, like every citizen in South Africa or in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. Therefore I do not think that the police are treated differently from other people when they are found guilty of anything.  They are just arrested.

In order to save time, I will not dwell on one individual member for a long time.  I come to the hon member Mthiyane.  He was addressing the issue of interference with the justice system and he quoted some other cases.  As I have said, and the same question has been addressed, politicians must stop doing that. You will find that some of the politicians will criticise any judgment by any judicial system if such a judgment is against their wishes.  You see that is always bad.

Then if you go to Mr Jeffery.  The hon member was talking about the Peace Committee which did not enjoy a quorum whenever it used to meet.  In fact, I do not think the problem is really so big.  We are going to solve the problem.  The parties have not agreed to reduce the quorum, but it does not mean to say the parties will not agree in future.

I would like to thank the hon member Advocate Schutte for exposing that the Police Department is underfunded.  Yes, of course, that is correct.

Going to the hon member Mr Ntombela.  He was correct to say Provincial Ministers have been given no powers.  In fact, there are no powers.  No powers have been given to Provincial Ministers.  That does not only come from the IFP, even the ANC Ministers in other provinces say they do not have powers.

AN HON MEMBER:  No, I just had a meeting with them.  [LAUGHTER]

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Then if you go to the hon member Mr Nel.  I think he is correct to say there will be no development and investment if the crime continues at this level.

Then the hon member Miss Xulu.  I agree with her to say powers should be devolved to the provinces.  As far as the VIP officers who do not get overtime are concerned, I do not think it is correct, but anyway I will look into this matter.  I will investigate the matter and then see how far we can progress.

As far as the medical aid matter is concerned, the hon members will remember that when there was that controversy, especially about the en masse programme, the matter of the medical aid was also included.  We agreed to invite the Minister from national level.  The matter is being dealt with by the Minister at national level.  I do not have powers to do anything as far as medical aid schemes on police matters are concerned.

I agree with the hon member Mrs Galea who said that we have visited so many flash points.  In fact, it was such a relief to hear somebody speaking positively.  Thank you very much, Mrs Galea.  She also addressed the matter of partnerships between the police and communities.  In fact, that it is what we are doing at the moment, to promote a good relationship.

I also commend the hon member Mr Rehman who commended the provincial leadership during Portfolio Committee meetings.  I would like to thank the hon member and Mr Rajbansi for their contributions.  I would like to thank them, I was very disappointed to hear that there are members in the head office who referred to the Indian people as "coolies", and some African people as "kaffirs".  I think we will have to investigate that.  I am going to approach the Provincial Commissioner to  investigate these matters.  If it is so, that is very bad.  We will have to take disciplinary action against that.

The hon member Mrs Ngcobo, addressed the issue of violence against women and women who are killed by men.  I agree with the hon member, but at the same time I addressed this issue in my budget speech.  It is not only women who are being ill-treated by men, sometimes you find men being ill-treated by women.  

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Yes, yes, yes.  Therefore we as men also need some assistance in the form of protection against women who are aggressive towards men.  [LAUGHTER]

The hon member Mr Mkhwanazi, I agree that the police will not succeed within our communities without the assistance of the communities themselves.

I agree with the hon member Mr Waugh when he says that the crime in our country is out of hand.  That is correct.  The National Department of Safety and Security must do something to address this situation, because it was the Minister at national level who made amendments to the policing laws.  We cannot do anything in the provinces.  Crime is not only committed in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, but it is worldwide, but especially in South Africa.

I agree with the member Mr Gwala who was emphasising the issue of more powers to the provinces, and then he touched on the TRC functions in the Province.  I do not want to dwell on that.  He even mentioned the Mxenge case and he proposed that the ANC should apologise to the IFP, as the IFP was said to have been responsible for the killing of the Mxenge family.  If the ANC is not interested in doing that now, I think tomorrow they will do it because there is a need for it.

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!  They must do it.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  I agree with everything the hon member Mr Powell said.  But when it comes to this issue between myself and the hon Minister Mr Ndebele, it is correct that on Thursday we had a meeting, Mr Ndebele, myself, his Department and the Provincial Taxi Task Team.  The following  Friday the hon member Mr Powell is correct to say that I was totally unaware of that meeting, but that does not imply that I did not support this meeting.  The Minister informed us that he tried to look for me but in vain.  In fact, I was attending the meeting of the ~Amakhosi~ in ~Ulundi~.  Therefore there is nothing wrong with what Mr Powell has said as far as the issue is concerned, because I did not know about the meeting on Friday.  He is correct in saying that.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  He is trying to cause division.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  No, no, there will not be any division.  

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  That is why he raised it.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  No, there will not be any division.  The ANC will always listen to the IFP, therefore there will not be any division.  [LAUGHTER]  He went on to criticise the manner in which the SANDF members performed, especially in the ~Inkosi~ Khoza matter.  In fact, it was very bad, the performance by SANDF members.  I think we will have to pursue this matter at a higher level, because we cannot tolerate that.  We understand that when the SANDF members approached the ~Inkosi~ they even asked him why was he not joining Contralesa.  That was the message from the SANDF, questioning the ~Inkosi~ why he had failed to join Contralesa.  Those are the things that we cannot tolerate.

Lastly, we come to the hon member Mr Makhaye.  In fact, he was talking about peace, and some of the members who indicated that they will not agree to peace if that and that is not done.  In fact, that is correct.  You cannot preach the gospel of violence and at the same time say there should be peace.  If people say no, we cannot agree to peace whilst you are still preaching the gospel of violence, they are correct.  They are correct to say that.  Do not answer me.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  He went on to say that the Provincial Cabinet must propose a vote of no-confidence in the Provincial Commissioner.  In fact, the Provincial Cabinet cannot be told by the hon member, to propose a vote of no-confidence.  If there is any need for that to be done, it will be done.  It will not be pushed into a corner by the hon member.  I do not think that is good.

Then the hon member Mr Makhaye was correct in saying that in some of the instances where white farmers kill blacks nothing happens.  He is correct in saying that.  If you followed the incident at Impendle just recently, where a young boy, or a teacher had allegedly been killed by a certain farmer nothing happened.  But we cannot criticise the farmer, because at the same time the post-mortem was being done, the doctors doing the post-mortem, beat about the bush.  They could not produce tangible evidence that the man had been killed by the farmer.  Therefore those are the things that should not happen.

Then in winding up, we agree with the constructive criticism of members, but at the same time where credibility is we would be glad if members could say the police have done this and that and that.  Take for instance, according to achievements here, you will remember that with the serial killing of 19 people the accused was arrested.  You will remember that as far as the Swedish tourists were concerned, the matter was solved within a week.  With that Stanger SBV robbery R650 000 was retrieved and seven people were arrested.  With the Pinetown SBV robbery, four were arrested and three were policemen.  Therefore it is not correct to say whenever policemen do wrong we do not do anything.

Empangeni, in the matter of Dr Alexander, the murder of Dr Alexander, five people were arrested.  In the Durban High Court just recently, four arrests were made.  In the Mkuze bank robbery R2,4 million was recovered and seven people were arrested.  Farm matter solving rate is 65%.  In the double murder, the Reed family on the freeway, two people were arrested.  Special investigation cash-in-transit robberies, 12 arrests in 17 cases last week.  Complaints attended by firearms received in 1997 total to 8 792.  Taxi related cases, arrests so far 186.  With the James Zulu murder, the matter has already been solved.  As far as SANAB is concerned, we recovered 1,2 tons of dagga destined for Holland.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION AND LAUGHTER

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Car hijackings, 17 syndicates arrested in 12 cases.  Several million Rands worth of goods recovered.  Two syndicates for car hijacking on the South Coast were arrested.  Therefore I can count a number of police achievements during the year 1997 and 1998.

Therefore with those few remarks, Madam Chair, I propose that my budget speech be adopted.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr Minister, and hon members.  That brings us to the close of this debate.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Madam Chairman, would you indulgence me and allow me, I had to make an urgent phone call concerning some business of this House, would you allow me to make a point of clarification please?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Unfortunately I cannot.  We have gone through the vote.  It has been discussed, I cannot unfortunately.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Well, Madam Chairman, would you allow me to make a comment?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can you take your seat please.  Thank you.  Thank you, Mr Minister.  Thank you, hon members.  That brings us to the close of our debate on vote 9.  We now continue with vote 11 on Environmental Affairs.  It is at this time that I will allow the Minister to introduce the vote, for 30 minutes.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Madam Chair, before we start.  We should not start a debate without the speakers list.  Could we at least have that speakers list.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I am very sorry, hon member.  Do we not have the speakers list at all?  I am very sorry.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Madam Chairman, since we are waiting for the speakers list.  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  We are not waiting on that issue.  We are not waiting on that line.  The hon member is attempting to try his luck. 

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon members, order!  Order!  Can we allow the Minister to introduce the vote while our service officers are assisting us with delivering the list.  The hon Minister on Environmental Affairs.  Mbomvu.


~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Madam Chair, and hon members.  I rise to address the two programmes on my vote which deal with the Environment and Nature Conservation.

Hon members will note that vote 11 has been reduced by R27,8 million which is about 14,6%.  Last year the proportions of the vote accorded to the Environment and Nature Conservation were 1,9% and 81,5% respectively; this year the proportions are 3,3% and 80%.  The money allocated to Cinderella, ie Environment, has risen from R3,5 million to R5,3 million which is still a bare minimum.  The amount available for Nature Conservation has fallen by R25,2 million.  We must bear in mind that R11,3 million was provided for capital last year in this programme and this has been totally expunged.  Fortunately, the parastatal has borrowing powers for this purpose.

Hon members will note that Programme 4 is formatted as if the amalgamation has not taken place.  This is because at the time of the preparation of the draft estimates, that was the legal position.  Hon members should, however, regard Programme 4 as a unit.  The whole amount less any personnel expenditure related to persons who did not transfer to the Conservation Service, such as a handful of staff that will go to the Environment component, will be added to the transfer payment to the Conservation Service.  This will then be ratified in the adjustment estimates.

Madam Chair, hon members, we have suffered severe reductions like most other votes.  We must, however, do the best with what we have got.  In that spirit let me turn to the actual activities which these two programmes address.

Hon members will be aware that Environment had not been a provincial competence until 1994.  It has therefore been necessary to develop an Environmental component from virtually nothing.

With reference to future planning, I turn now to give an overview of the work that lies ahead.

PROGRAMME:  3

Programme Three:  Environment of my vote 11 has three sub-programmes which the House is familiar with, namely Pollution Control, Environmental Impact Management and Environmental Education.

POLLUTION CONTROL:  R1 229 000

I would like first to address this year's programme for the sub-programme Pollution Control and note that, as with the other sub-programmes of Programme 3, while there are sufficient funds allocated for a modicum of personnel, the operational budget for this component is extremely limited.  This will have significant implications for attaining the proposed goals of this sub-programme for this financial year.

These goals for Pollution Control sub-programme include the development of an environmental law reference library for my environmental staff; and it has become increasingly clear that my staff not only have to be fully versed in the Constitution and the Environmental Conservation Act, but they also have to be well acquainted with the provisions of other statutes such as the Conservation of Agriculture Resources Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and the Water Act to mention a few.

It has also been recognised that developing such a library is insufficient.  Staff need to be informed and trained on the contents of these statutes and their associated regulations.  This includes the implementation procedures and being aware of who are the responsible authorities for each statute.  For this reason, the second key project for the Pollution Control sub-programme is development of an internal environmental law course for the staff drawing on existing expertise in this field.

A goal is the development of a provincial environmental management framework.

The KwaZulu-Natal environmental management framework is to be a joint project of the Province and the National Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.  In drawing the framework together, it is anticipated that the Strategic Environmental Framework of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative will form the backbone, along with our Preliminary State of Environment Report and other data sets housed in the Department of Local Government and Housing.  My staff are currently awaiting further information from Pretoria regarding the proposed modus operandi for this project.

Some time ago now there was a CONNEPP process, or the consultation on a new environmental policy for South Africa.  This process included extensive workshopping and participation and resulted in a KwaZulu-Natal report to the national process.  During the process a broad range of problems, issues and policy matters were expressed which resulted in the development of a draft waste management policy for KwaZulu-Natal and this was seen to be the highest priority issue.  This will be formally announced in the near future.

I might mention for the benefit of the House that the CONNEPP process has now been finalised with the publication of the White Paper on the National Environmental Management Policy on Friday, 15 May 1998.  It should also be noted that the Durban Metropolitan Council has recently initiated the development of a Metro Environmental Policy.  Obviously the provincial policy needs to take cognisance of both.

We are currently communicating with the regional offices of key national departments such as Water Affairs and Forestry, Agriculture, and the Chief Air Pollution Control Officer to negotiate working agreements with these functions regarding the implementation of the so-called Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations as a number of the controlled activities are also controlled by legislation administered by these departments.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT MANAGEMENT:  R1 574 000

The second sub-programme:  Environmental Impact Management is largely concerned with the implementation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations that I referred to earlier, and as such the goals for this sub-programme revolve around the development of streamlined systems for the processing of applications and the active participation in the national forums at which the regulations are discussed to clarify issues of definition and procedures.  I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that as of May 15, 1998, a total of 58 applications in terms of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations had been received by my Department with a range in project value from R500 000 to in excess of R750 million.

The coming into effect of the new Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations has placed a great burden on this component.  It has been found that the work of the physical planning component in the Department of Local Government and Housing has a considerable overlap with the work associated with the administration of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations.  There has accordingly been co-ordination with the planners and further proposals in this regard, aimed at the most effective utilisation of available staff, will be submitted to the Cabinet in the near future.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION:  R2 410 000

I turn to the task of Environmental Education which is R2 410 000.  The White Paper on Environmental Management Policy for South Africa requires an Environmental Education component to promote the education and empowerment of South Africa's people.  To increase the people's awareness of and concern for environmental issues, and assist in developing the knowledge, skills, values and commitment necessary to achieve sustainable development.  This is a long term ambition which cannot be achieved overnight.

The following points will form the basis of environmental education actions:

1.	Environmental Education will have a strong community focus involving the integration of environmental education into community development and self-help programmes.

2.	It will endeavour to develop initiatives, programmes and projects that could enhance environmental literacy and action programmes amongst developing communities on their own needs.

3.	It will promote capacity building programmes and projects that will assist people, particularly those from disadvantaged sectors of society, in developing social and organisational skills to employ local and other knowledge in assessing and addressing their environmental concerns.

4.	It will work with the teachers to assist and encourage all schools to establish Schools' Environmental Policies in order to rekindle the people's love of the land and to increase environmental consciousness amongst our youth.

We also support co-operative ventures within the Province.  It is hoped that this will promote capacity building and be to the mutual benefit of staff and their organisation through "on-job-training".

We will work conscientiously to overcome duplication and waste of resources.  Environmental Education personnel, whether they be in Health, Agriculture or Conservation, or in my Department, must support each other by networking and sharing educational resource material.

In this regard we will see to establish and formalise a consultative forum aimed at providing opportunities to interacting with provincial NGOs and Government departments.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to SABC's Ukhozi FM and Ilanga Newspaper.  We have been allowed weekly six minute slots to broadcast environmental education programmes.  When one considers for a moment the listenership of Ukhozi FM throughout the country, one can appreciate just how many people can be reached at one time.

The Ilanga Newspaper, "Iphepha leSizwe", on the other hand, has made an arrangement with the Department to publish environmental education related material in every Thursday publication.  We are aware that our people are taking cuttings of these articles for references elsewhere.  I am indeed overwhelmed by the spirited support we receive from these media organisations.

We will in future initiate similar relationships with other media organisations in order to reach out to a wider audience of the general public.

PROGRAMME 4:  

NATURE CONSERVATION:  R130 039 000

This is the first time I speak with regard to a unified KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service.  This is a great source of satisfaction to me, and I am sure it is to the hon members.  I pay tribute to the hon member Mr J Jeffery, and the members of the Environmental Portfolio Committee for the part they have played in laying down the legislative basis for the management of Nature Conservation in this Province in the future.

The Portfolio Committee and the Secretary of my Department have walked a long and difficult path with our friends in Nature Conservation to reach a stage where we are now at.  When Mr Raubenheimer first chaired the Amalgamation Steering Committee he had to encourage those concerned to reconcile their differences and to appreciate that an amalgamation was not possible without legislation.  The only initiative in this regard up until then had been taken by Mr D J Joubert, whose report hon members will recall, formed the basis of what we have now achieved.  We may now therefore look to the future and I will soon announce the appointment of the new Nature Conservation Board.

This Province, now more than ever is in a unique position to offer a mix of protected area tourist destinations second to none in the country.  From the Drakensberg Park to the splendours of the famous Zululand and Maputoland Parks such as Hluhluwe/Umfolozi, the Ndumo/Tembe Complex, the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, Kosi Bay and many others of equal renown.

An ever burgeoning spirit of business enterprise is permeating the ethos of nature conservation as managers face up to the stark realities of massive budget cuts.  More and more, joint ventures are becoming the norm in planning the new enterprises in tourism developments.  The Conservation Service has embraced this concept wholeheartedly in its planning of such ventures, and has indeed established a new Operations Division to address itself more to joint developments with adjacent communities, the private sector and with business and industry.

The newly introduced Community Levy scheme is now up and running in all the protected areas of the Province under the Governance of the Conservation Service.  Money collected through the levy will be used to finance upliftment projects among the communities living adjacent to protected areas.  A Trust has been established for the purpose, and grants will be distributed through the proposed system of Local Conservation Boards as laid down in the Conservation Management Act.

In addition to establishing this levy system, the Conservation Service has also begun spearheading a campaign to influence private eco-tourism to come aboard in embracing the scheme as well.

With regard to Local Boards, the fundamental function and objectives of these Boards, I would remind members, will be to promote local decision-making regarding the management of nature conservation and heritage resources within protected areas as well as to promote the integration of the activities of the protected areas into those of the surrounding areas.  This holistic approach is designed to re-dress past exclusions from participation in the overall activity of environmental conservation.  It can only be to the benefit of us all.  Promotion of the objectives of protected areas will include taking into account the needs of rural communities living adjacent to protected areas.  This will be of specific concern to Local Boards.

So, clearly, the future is not all doom and gloom in the conservation world, despite the stringent monetary constraints currently in force.  Never was the old adage of change bringing opportunity more apposite than it is today, and never more apparent than in the vibrant spirit of positive, productive opportunism that prevails in our Province's Nature Conservation Service.

I have referred above to the need for an entrepreneurial spirit.  It is essential that Nature Conservation generate its own income and as far as possible become self-sustaining.  It is important therefore that the Service be allowed to retain the funds it raises.

We must always remember that the previous levels of funding for Nature Conservation were attained in the era in which social services for black folk were grossly underfunded.  Those levels are not defendable when contrasted with real social needs in our country instead of the false socio-economic order which prevailed under the old Constitution(s).  With a projected positive cash flow of R45 million from the ex-Natal Parks Board, the Conservation Service is in a more fortunate position than any other provincial organ of State.  I readily concede that this positive cash flow is to the credit of Dr Hughes and his management team and I gladly compliment him and his staff.

Lastly, I will touch only briefly on the question of transformation in the Conservation Service.  Here I wish to record my appreciation to the former Department of Nature Conservation from whose ranks came four of our affirmative action appointments.  Mr M T Mchunu and Mr K Mkhize attained the ranks of Director and Deputy Director respectively, while on the gender side Mrs S Allan attained the rank of Director and Mrs G Masinga the post of Head : Communications.

Transformation does not, however, only involve affirmative action.  It involves a change of style and attitude which rejects an authoritarian approach in favour of one of consultation and deep respect for the welfare and humanity of the staff.  In particular, the white officials must remember that their black compatriots had to adjust to their way of thinking in the past.  Now we must all be prepared to make considerable adjustments of attitude and management style, in order to go forward in the spirit of the new Constitution.

I now, Madam Chair, hon members, propose the adoption of Programme 3 and 4 of vote 11.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, hon Minister.  We now come to the hon member Mr J H Jeffery for 15 minutes, who is the Portfolio Committee Chair.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I would like to firstly start by thanking the members of the Portfolio Committee for their full and active participation in the activities of the Portfolio Committee in this past financial year.  We have been able to function well as a Committee and deal with matters largely on a non-partisan basis.  I would like to thank in particular Mr MacKenzie, the Chair of the IFP Study Group for his support in the Committee, and then also the hon Minister and the Secretary of the Department for their support, assistance and attendance at meetings.

The Committee has had an active year.  It has had 15 meetings, plus one which was held jointly with the Safety and Security Portfolio Committee.  It has addressed a number of issues, in particular the amalgamation process of the Natal Parks Board and the Department of Nature Conservation.  It has dealt with the passing of the KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Management Act, and has been monitoring the implementation of the Act.  It has drawn up a work programme for the coming year which includes quite a large number of issues.

As in just about I think all, if not all of the budget debates in this session, the question of money and cuts comes up.  As the hon Minister has said, this vote has had a 14% cut.  We have heard about problems from Education, from Health and from Transport about the cuts that they have faced and the difficulties that they are facing in terms of providing the services that people need.

People may well ask is this money for the environment and conservation well spent.  What is this money going to yield?  What is it going to do for the people?  Would this money not be better spent on building houses or schools?  I would like in responding to that to draw on an example the hon Minister of Transport gave in his budget debate in motivating for additional funds for Transport, and that was over the question of the Eshowe/~Ulundi~ road.  He said that to upgrade it now would cost R4,3 million.  If it were not upgraded, if that money were not spent, that it would cost in excess of R30 million by the year 2005.

Environment is something similar.  You can ignore it now, but later on you will have to pay a lot more to deal with the problems that have been caused.  But then where the Environment is different from Transport; in certain circumstances, no matter what amount you pay, you may not be able to correct the damage.

So it is crucial that money is given to this vote.  The Constitution gives us a right to a healthy environment.  Much of environment involves proper planning and making sure that developments that take place now have as minimal an impact on the environment for the future as possible.

If we look at other developing countries, such as Malaysia which has been projected as a successful developing country, we have seen that they have not been that successful.  Because of a lack of environmental planning they have had major problems from pollution from the burning of their forests.  We do not want that to happen here.

Controls over the environment are luckily increasing .  The National Minister has promulgated regulations dealing with Environmental Impact Assessments to ensure that when plans take place for certain developments, that there has to be proper planning, consideration of all the options and consultation with all the stakeholders.  The implementation of those regulations rests with the Province, and one of the concerns that we are facing is do we have the capacity in the Province to implement those regulations.  If we do not, it means that development is going to be put on hold and that will be problematic.  That is one of the crucial issues.

As the hon Minister has said, there are attempts to address this to ensure co-ordination with the planning department or planning division of Local Government.  The Provincial Planning Bill that it is intended will be passed next week, has quite considerably changed things, and when that Bill is passed, if it is passed in its current form, it will effectively give responsibility for the implementation of the Environment Impact Regulations to the Minister responsible for planning.

That may better co-ordinate things, but it is that issue of whether environment moves over to Planning and Local Government that needs to be thoroughly discussed and thoroughly considered.  What will, for example, happen to conservation?  Will that remain with our current Minister, or will that also go across?  If it is separated, I do not think there has been any province in the country where conservation and the environment have been separated.

On the question of Pollution Control; it is an important issue in that it is very often the poor who suffer the most.  They cannot afford to move to the better suburbs.  It costs more money and they end up being the people who live in the places affected by pollution.

Work is being done on a waste management policy, but it is of some concern that this policy has not yet come to this House, because we urgently need to develop that policy and subject it to public debate and then implement it.

The Province is facing a potential crisis regarding hazardous waste.  There are no sites for high hazardous wastes in the Province, and the high hazardous wastes that is generated has to be transported to other places like Gauteng.  This increases the danger on our roads to traffic and to water supplies, given the number of important rivers that the trucks carrying hazardous waste have to cross.  The Chief Directorate of the Environment has indicated in its report to the Portfolio Committee that part of its programme for this coming year will be to initiate a high/low hazardous waste landfill site identification process.  We hope that that will happen.

As far as Conservation is concerned, the marriage that we have spoken about in previous budget debates has finally happened.  The one issue that is disappointing is that the Board has not yet been appointed.  At this stage the Portfolio Committee, in terms of the Act, is awaiting the short list from the Selection Committee.  That process has taken longer than people had expected, and I hope that that process will be finalised quite soon.

One of the problems, obviously with amalgamation, is the question of staffing.  One of the visits that the Portfolio Committee made was to a Opathe Game Reserve, which is a relatively small reserve and has in excess of 100 staff members.  Those are obviously questions that need to be addressed in order to make the service a viable and efficient option.

Given the budget constraints, Conservation has obviously had to look increasingly to other sources of funding.  Two main sources are money generated from tourism in conservation areas and from fund-raising.  Two Trusts have been established by former Conservation bodies, namely the Conservation Trust of the former Parks Board and the Wildlands Trust by the former KwaZulu Government.  The Portfolio Committee has received reports from both these bodies, but still has to finalise its conclusions.  While both Trusts have different roles, the Conservation Trust, for example, is a capital Trust utilising the interest from the capital invested, and the Wildlands Trust raises funds for specific projects.

Questions that we need to ask ourselves are, do we need two separate Trusts?  Is it not confusing for the potential donor and increasing the administration costs?  Other questions relate to the composition, the role and function of the Trusts.  The Conservation Trust is elected by donors, and subsequently the Board is entirely composed of white men.  The Wildlands Trust was initially appointed by the KwaZulu Government and its composition reflects this.  The existing Trustees also determine who shall be appointed to replace outgoing members, and there is also then involvement of both politicians and officials in the Wildlands Trust.  Questions we need to ask ourselves is, is this the best structure of this Trust?

Conservation generally is under threat, but I do not think that we look sufficiently at the role of Conservation as a tool for rural development.  How communities surrounding conservation areas can benefit from tourism coming to their areas, both as far a direct financial benefit, a share in a tourism facility, or through downstream small business activities.  I think that that is an area that requires considerable attention.  The rural areas are facing difficulties with development.  Conservation is one area that could assist them quite considerably.

One of the areas that the Portfolio Committee has been involved in is the whole question of eco-tourism facilities in Maputoland.  It has, and I think other members will speak on it, had considerable successes with getting the police and the army out, or at least on the point of moving out of their facilities in Maputoland, to allow tourism developments to take place.

IsiVuno has played a pioneering role in this regard, and there is a lot that we can learn from their model, but there is a lot that we also need to do in terms of the considering it and seeing where it could improve.  Unfortunately progress from IsiVuno has been fairly slow.  They were allocated 17 sites in 1993 and development unfortunately has not proceeded as fast as everybody would have liked to have, and this is an area that requires considerable attention.

On the question of transformation, one hopes that with the amalgamation of the Conservation Service that attention will be given to transformation.  It is important that the Service reflects the population of the Province.  It is not just a question of black faces or female faces, it is also a question of attitudes.  Unfortunately the Conservation Service had a particular approach in the past which was centred more towards the reserves, the protected areas and what was happening inside them, and it needs to refocus on relations with surrounding communities.

Very often that can be done or needs the input of representatives of those communities, or at least of the wider population in the Province.  It is urgent that attention be given to that area, and my concern is that that is not moving fast enough.

The last point I wish to make, Madam Chair, was just regarding the question on the aspect of conservation.  As the Minister has said, we are very lucky within the Province that we have one of the most effective, if not the most effective Provincial Conservation Services in the country.  We have got a lot going for us.

One of our priorities with the Conservation Act was to try and ensure that members of political parties holding positions, members of this House are not members of the Conservation Board, and that as far as possible politicians do not interfere with Conservation.  It is important that that process continue.  There have been problems in the past with perceptions of political bias on the part of the Conservation authorities, both in the Province of Natal and in KwaZulu.  It is important that if Conservation is to have the support from all people, that it is not involved in things that can be perceived to be supporting political parties on either side of this House.

With those words, Madam Chair, I would like to support the budget vote and to thank again members of the Committee for their support in this past year.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I would like to announce that the Deputy Chair, Mr T S Mohlomi, is going to take over.  I now call upon the hon member Miss B Barrett.

MR T S MOHLOMI THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES TAKES THE CHAIR

MISS B BARRETT:  Madam Chair, hon members of the House.  Like all other departments, Environment and Conservation will be feeling the affects of the budget cuts this year.  But for a Cinderella department like Conservation, a further reduction in income will make it impossible for this Department to function optimally.

The amount allocated to Nature Conservation has been decreased by 16,25%, and the body that has to absorb the impact of this cut is the Natal Parks Board and its successor, as usual!  The argument is that the Natal Parks Board can generate its own funds through the revenue collected at the parks and reserves.  But the budget cut has made this task impossible because, out of necessity, no provision has been made for capital works.  In short, there is no money to improve or build new tourist facilities at the present reserves.

To add to this tragedy, the vast majority of the current budget, up to 82%, has to be spent on staff, leaving as little as 18% for actual conservation.  This was a result of a problem inherited from the former Department of Nature Conservation, where more personnel were employed than was authorised by Treasury to do so, apparently in excess of 650 people.  In addition to this, the legal mediating body, CCMA, has ruled that an extra 200 casual workers have to be made permanent employees, an extra burden to an already overloaded staff complement.  Thus the new KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service will be placed in an immediate disadvantage, with virtually no resources to manage the current facilities.  There will be an adverse effect on protected area management, on research, and on staff training and development.  There is no money to replace vehicles well over their official mileage limits.

For businessmen, the answer would be simple.  If you are forced to scale down business operations, then logically the staff complement would need to be scaled down proportionately.  Not so in the public sector, and I am not only talking about this Department.  Each year provinces are given less and less funds to operate with, but because of a lunatic deal struck by the National Party prior to the 1994 elections, nothing, absolutely nothing can be done to deflate the bloated public service.  And it is our voting electorate that is suffering as a result, because the maintenance and delivery of services is deteriorating from one year to the next.

All I can say is Thank Heavens for Dr George Hughes and his competent officials, because the Portfolio Committee is once again expecting him to perform miracles.  He often does and that is the problem.  And the reward his Department gets for tight and efficient management is to cut his funds.  I honestly believe the Finance Committee should reconsider its budgetary allocations, and introduce an incentive scheme for those departments who do keep within budget, who manage their resources and institute controls against corruption and fraud.  Why should all departments suffer because of the mismanagement of some?

I am now going to turn to another unpopular topic.  Environmental Affairs and their Waste Management programme.  Without casting aspersions on any of the management of this Department, who must be congratulated for doing a sterling job under the present circumstances, but I honestly believe we are throwing good money after a bad cause.  The current capacity of the Environment Affairs Directorate is totally inadequate, to the extent that Minister Miller's physical planning division has taken almost sole responsibility for Environmental Management, by reviewing EIAs and implementing environmental regulations.  This leaves what few staff there are in Environment Affairs to run around the Province to try and manage toxic waste disposal and pollution control.  Beyond responding to complaints, there is little else one can expect this skeleton staff complement to do.

There is a solution to this problem, and one I hope the hon Mike Tarr will repeat once again to the House, and that is to transfer this function over to the private sector where it belongs, and where it resides in most developed countries in the world.  This would entail a full environmental audit done of our Province, and the introduction of waste management and pollution controls through an Environmental Management System, funded and run by the private sector itself.  I would much rather see the funds allocated to Environment Affairs used for a worthy endeavour such as this, than wasted on a futile programme which is rendered ineffective through insufficient resources.  Then in future years, this budget allocation could be transferred to the cash strapped Conservation Services, who could use this money to generate the income it is capable of doing.

On a separate issue, and in case the Finance Department hopes I have forgotten to mention it, no movement whatsoever has been done to protect the best marine institute in South Africa, ORI, a unique and irreplaceable asset that belongs to KwaZulu-Natal, but because of our blatant disinterest, one that we are going to lose.  It is ORI's scientists who pointed out the deficiencies in the Marine Living Resources Bill to protect our provincial interests.  It is ORI's scientists who serve on national marine conservation bodies to protect the integrity of KwaZulu-Natal's coastline.  And what do they get from us in return?  A miserly R200 000 per annum.

In addition, because of the budget cut, the Conservation Department has virtually no money to devote on essential marine research, and as a result this source of revenue to ORI for work done, has also been slashed by more than half.  I am sick and tired of the argument thrown at me that marine resources is a national competence and should be paid by National Government.  ORI is an institute that was established in KwaZulu-Natal, by dedicated scientists from KwaZulu-Natal, for KwaZulu-Natal.  If we abrogate our responsibility to support ORI, their focus, out of financial necessity, will have to change.

Why does my argument repeatedly fall on deaf ears in Treasury?  Are members of this House not aware of what ORI does for this Province, for the protection of our coastline, for vital marine research, and for the education of our children?  KwaZulu-Natal has such limited resources, why are we disregarding the resources we have?  The short-sightedness of blocking out the importance of our coastal area and the conservation bodies established to protect this area, is going to have long term repercussions on the economic growth of this Province.  And I am going to be able to turn around to this House and say, "I told you so", again and again and again.  I repeat myself year in and year out.  But I am not going to stop, because this is something far too important for me to let go, and something I need to fight for, for my children and for future generations.

Finally, I would like to turn to the Maputoland Coastal Forest Reserve.  After three solid years of protest, the SAPS and army have finally agreed to relocate their holiday camps from the primary dunes inside the reserve.  I do not know whether we should be congratulated for a job well done, or should we be questioned why we have allowed the voice Parliament to be treated with total disregard by some departments who hail themselves above the law?  I totally agree with my hon colleague, Mr Wessel Nel, that the relocation of these camps from sensitive areas within the reserve, should have been carried out in the form of an instruction, not a protracted negotiation between the Ministry and Parliament versus senior civil servants.  I am still not happy with the fact that both the army and SAPS are looking to relocate their Kosi Bay mouth and lake sites to Lake Zilonde, because in my view this is a relocation from one sensitive site to the next.  Lake Zilonde is a prime potential tourist site already earmarked for development by the eco-tourism body, IsiVuno, and this site still falls squarely within the boundaries of the reserve.

Be that as it may, we have admittedly made some headway to restore the Maputoland Coastal Reserve to its designated function, that of a protected conservation area.  Now we just have to make sure that the police and army physically move out as soon as humanly possible!  But the saga is not yet over.  The abuse of this coastal reserve extends to other departments and bodies as well, namely the Provincial Departments of Health and Agriculture, the mining industry, the church and private individuals.  But the removal of these outstanding sites are all within our provincial competence, so it must be up to our Ministry, with the backing of the Portfolio Committee, to ensure that all remaining abuses within the reserve are eradicated during the course of this year.

To conclude, I would like to support the budget before us, but I strongly appeal to the Finance Department to try and find more funds for Conservation.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Miss Barrett.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Roy Ainslie, to address the House for 11 minutes.

MR A R AINSLIE:  Thank you very much, Mr Chairperson.  When the hon Minister addressed us earlier on, he said that we should not get too gloomy.  But, Mr Chairperson, when I look at this budget I get very gloomy, and when I listened to the hon Miss Barrett, I get even gloomier when she discusses the effects of the budget cut on this Department.  It would appear that, to paraphrase what the hon Minister of Health said when he spoke to us last week, we are now cutting bone and tissue, it is no longer just fat.

Mr Chairperson, Miss Barrett made a general statement that delivery gets worse and worse every year.  It was a very general statement she made.  I do not think it had much to do with the present vote under discussion, and I am not sure where Miss Barrett lives, but I would like to invite Miss Barrett perhaps to come with me to Inanda, and we will see the absolute miracle of delivery that has taken place in Inanda over four years.  If that does not satisfy her we will go next door to KwaMashu, and then next door to Ntuzuma, and if that does not satisfy her we shall go to the hon Mr Mfayela's area where electricity is being installed, there are roads being built, there are clinics being built.  That little tour of mine, Mr Chairperson, should satisfy Miss Barrett.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR A R AINSLIE:  Getting back to this particular vote.  Mr Chairperson, I would like to deal with perhaps just two or three specific issues.  Human life relies for existence on certain essential elements.  These are water, air, soil and bio-diversity.  I would like to just deal with one or two of these and their status in KwaZulu-Natal at the moment.

Let us look at water first of all.  All life depends on water, and when I spoke in this debate in 1995, I said that Southern Africa faces an impending water shortage.  In fact, by the year 2025 South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Lesotho will all face very serious water shortages.  There will be insufficient water to meet human consumption, to meet the needs of industry, of agriculture and of mining.

Mr Chairperson, wetlands have a very vital role to play in the maintenance of bio-diversity.  They are also an important water source for many rural communities.  They are feeder systems, they act as sponges and over time feed water into our rivers.  They act as feeder systems to these rivers and to our lakes.  They are vitally important.

Despite this, a large portion of our wetlands have been destroyed or degraded.  By 1988, 58% of the wetlands of the Mfolozi catchment area had already been lost.  The Tugela River system has lost 90% of its wetlands, and this picture is much the same elsewhere in our Province.

I would like to know from the Minister, maybe not today, but at some stage, what is the Minister and the Department doing to map the remaining wetlands?  What is being done to protect what is left of our wetlands?  These are important issues for us, very important if we want to face these water shortages that I have indicated are on the horizon.

One of the main causes of pollution of our fresh water supply is the uncontrolled number of pipes which release industrial and other waste into our rivers and lakes.  The same applies to marine pollution.  There are between 20 and 30 major pipes, and the number is growing, which discharge a wide range of waste into the sea.  Again, at some stage, obviously perhaps not today, one does not like pouncing things on our Minister, maybe at some stage he will need to address this.  Is anything being done to identify these pipes?  How many are there?  What is being dumped into our water sources, and into the marine environment?  What effect is this discharge having on the environment?  I would like to know at some stage what the Department's plans are to deal with this problem.

Mr Chairperson, another essential element that human existence requires is air, and this essential element is being degraded by steadily increasing levels of pollution.  We see in the budget that has been tabled here today, that there is completely insufficient funds to deal effectively with the problem of pollution.  We need to be taking urgent steps to clean our air now as, I almost said Comrade JJ, as the hon John Jeffery said earlier on.  The longer we wait with some of these problems, the more difficult and expensive it will be to tackle the issue eventually.  We look forward to legislation in this regard, Mr Minister. 

Let me give you some examples of what lies on the horizon for us.  Breathing in New Delhi is comparable to smoking between 10 and 20 cigarettes a day.  Mexico City is a smoker's paradise.  In Mexico City breathing is the equivalent of smoking over 40 cigarettes a day.  Let us not wait to reach these levels before we try and address the problem.

AN HON MEMBER:  Well researched speech.

MR A R AINSLIE:  The hon Mr Jeffery earlier on made reference to poor people being the ones that suffer when it comes to pollution.  That is quite correct and one need look no further than Merebank, south of Durban.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR A R AINSLIE:  The poor planning, Mr Chairperson, of residential and chemical plants in the area requires urgent attention from all levels of Government, otherwise we are heading for catastrophe in that area.  The SAPREF explosion last week is a reminder that we have the makings of a disaster on our hands in the area.

We have a very weak system of air pollution control, which is not going to be addressed by this budget.  The characteristics of that weak system are the following:

1.	Limited Government budgets, which we have all referred to.
2.	A lack of transparency in air pollution control.
3.	Offenders are seldom prosecuted, or if they are, they get off with a slap on the wrist.  The result is big polluters do not take control measures seriously.
4.	Air pollution is not properly considered in planning industrial and residential areas.  I have given the example of Merebank and other areas south of Durban.

We look forward to legislation dealing with some of these matters I have referred to.

Mr Chairperson, I want to deal with another issue.  There is unfinished business between the Minister and his Portfolio Committee.  I refer here to the raising of Lake Nhlabane weir.  The Minister owes us an explanation for his recommendation that the weir be raised.  We have not yet got that explanation.  The Minister asked for public comment on the issue of raising the weir.  That comment was overwhelmingly no, but the Minister ignored that and gave permission, or gave his authority, or gave his blessing for the raising of the weir.

The Minister asked the view of the erstwhile Parks Board for their view on the matter.  They said no.  The Minister went ahead.  The Minister asked for the view of the erstwhile Department on the raising of Lake Nhlabane weir.  They said no.  The Minister went ahead.  The Minister asked for the view of the Portfolio Committee.  We spent time, effort, and money on having hearings and on making visits.  This is a multiparty Committee, the unanimous viewpoint of every single party on that Committee was that no, the weir should not be raised.  The Minister ignored that, went ahead with the raising of the weir, at least he gave permission for the raising of the weir.

It brings into question what the role of our Portfolio Committee is in regard to these matters.  Mr Chairperson, we would like to know on what basis the Minister made his decision?  If he ignored his Portfolio Committee, if he ignored public comments, if he ignored the Department, and ignored the Board, on what basis was the decision made?  Perhaps the hon Minister, again perhaps one is pouncing things on him, but maybe at his very earliest opportunity, the Portfolio Committee is in fact waiting for a response.

Mr Chairperson, that is all I have to say on those particular items, other than to say that I also support this budget, although it is a very bitter pill to swallow.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Ainslie.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Bartlett, to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Mr Chairman, it is rather nice to take part in a debate where it is clear all the members participating are ad idem on one issue, and that is, in this case, the future of our beautiful Province, and the conservation of those things that make it so attractive to not only our own citizens, but also to many people from all over the world.  Listening to this debate, and listening in particular to the hon member Mr Ainslie about rivers, I think he has got a very good point, where he says that many of our rivers are not the beautiful rivers they were possibly 100 years ago, and they really need to be taken a good look at.  I think that a lot of agriculturalists and farmers today are realising that water sources and rivers have got to be protected.

Indeed, I once saw some aerial photographs taken over the years of Lake St Lucia, and it shows that over the years the lake is slowly silting up.  The result of this is the erosion from the hinterland upstream from the lake.

AN HON MEMBER:  The sugar farmers.

MR G S BARTLETT:  No, it is not sugar farmers.  A lot of the watersheds are tribal areas, Mr Chairman.  But let that hon member make the interjection.  If it is indeed the sugar farmers then we should correct it.  Whoever is responsible should take a positive look at it, and I would like to thank the hon member Mr Ainslie for drawing our attention to this matter.  I had not intended to speak on it, but I thought I must just mention those points.

Mr Chairman, I want to say at the outset, while we do it reluctantly, we will support this miserable vote.  I say miserable because the hon Minister reports a 14,6% cut in the actual cash, which if you add inflation, means his Department will have to manage in excess of a 20% cut in the real value of the cash available to carry out its duties.  We support the vote, but we wish it was more.

I am not going to go into details, Mr Chairman, because I think the hon member Miss Barrett certainly came well prepared today, and well researched and she put a lot of very valid points to the hon House.  But I want to say to her that we in these benches support her plea about ORI.  ORI is a provincial asset, a valuable asset.  A valuable asset not only because of its research function, and the effect that that research function has on the future of our shorelines, but also a valuable asset in terms of its educational function, and also as its tourist function.  I really believe that we should take up her call.  If the Province cannot raise the funds, perhaps there should be a movement somewhere to increase the amount of money flowing into ORI.  We have had calls to save the porpoises and save the whales, maybe we should have a cry of "Save ORI", because I would hate it to disappear from KwaZulu-Natal.  So, she has our support on this issue she has raised.

Mr Chairman, this budget reflects, I believe, the underfunding which our whole provincial budget has received in certain key, let us call them social-type, departments.  I am talking about education, welfare, hospitals and so on.  If we only got, and I am not being party political now, I want to say to the hon members, I am putting a point here which I hope we all take note of: in regard to these budgets, if we only got our fair share of the total national cake, an equitable share, then perhaps other departments like this particular Department would not have to cut back on such vital functions, such as the environment and conservation.  The consequences of that underfunding is now being felt, and we are debating it here today and it is something we should all take cognisance of for future negotiations with the National Government.

I would like to compliment the Minister, and also the Secretary and the staff in putting forward this budget under very, very difficult circumstances.  I am sure that this budget is not going to satisfy everybody, and indeed very few people are going to be satisfied with it, but it is not possible under the circumstances to satisfy everyone, and under these circumstances they have done a good job.

Sir, the increase in the environmental protection from R3,6 million to R5,3 million is really, one or two members perhaps it is the hon member Miss Barrett who mentioned it, it is an infinitesimal amount when you consider the job to be done.  I think we really have to take a good look at this, because to only have R1,23 million set aside for pollution control is a negligible amount considering the problem.

I was pleased to hear the Minister say that his Department is going to be working closely with other governmental departments, National Government departments, such as the Department of Health, Water Affairs and so on.  Mr Chairman, I believe, we have got to rationalise the functions that we thought we could do, and to co-operate with these other departments for this interim period while we are going through the stringencies of having to pull in the belt, to make sure that we get the best out of a bad budget.  The fact that the Minister raised this shows that his Department is exercising its collective mind on how to overcome, or let us say to address the problem of pollution.

As far as the Environment Impact Management budget of I think it was R1,574 million is concerned, this is not a lot of money when you consider the problems and the needs.  On page 6 of the Minister's speech, he referred to the fact that 58 development applications in terms of the Environment Impact Assessment Regulations had been received by his Department, ranging from half a million Rand to in excess of R750 million.

Mr Chairman, I would like to say to the hon Minister that if he looks around the Province he will find a lot of developments going on, which I believe are damaging the environment, which are not even getting anywhere near his Department or the Department of Local Government and Housing for the permission for these developments.  Just keep ones eyes open as one drives down our freeways and byroads and, indeed even within the townships of this Province, and one will see development happening, which goes against all planning regulations and which are having a detrimental effect on the environment.

AN HON MEMBER:  Like your sugar cane being sold on the N3.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Yes, I wish you could stop it.  I wish the hon member could stop it.  I do not know whether he is aware of the problem but it is clear he thinks it is a joke, Mr Chairman.  It is not only polluting the highway, but I do not know whether that hon member is aware of the fact that so far three of those young men who steal my cane and sell it on the freeway have been killed in accidents on the N3 alongside my farm.  But that is another subject, but I just wish we could stop the problem.  I do not bother trying to any more, because I know the law enforcement authorities cannot cope.

But getting back to this business of the Environmental Impact Management, Mr Chairman, we have got to look at the small developments that are going up, some of them without planning permission, which in the long term are going to have a marked negative effect on our environment.

I want to get to the cut in the Conservation budget, sir.  It has been cut by R25 million, and the R11,4 million on capital expenditure has been expunged from the budget.  This is going to really exercise the minds of the new Conservation Board, and the Department, as to how they overcome this.  This is one of this Province's greatest assets, namely our game reserves and our nature parks.  They bring in a lot of tourists to this Province, and they bring in a lot of money to this Province.

The hon Minister said that they are going to have to rely, to a large extent, on self-funding through eco-tourism, the sale of game and other natural resources etcetera, sir.  But the Board is going to have to clearly set its priorities as to how they overcome this problem.  I do not doubt that they are going to adopt some very sound business and administrative management policies.  But, sir, their investment programme is going to have to be very closely looked at.  There has got to be an adequate cost benefit ratio analysis on the amount of capital which they are now going to have to borrow or raise themselves as to see whether the benefits from this investment are going to be adequate.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  But the one point the hon Minister raised about the utilisation of the resources within the game reserves and the parks I think is a very good one.  Maybe there is a huge potential of income to be derived from these.

Finally, sir, I would like to raise environmental education, which the hon Minister dwelt on to some extent.  I was pleased to hear he is working with the schools.  I wonder, Mr Chairman, whether we could get the Department and the schools and the taxi industry together to investigate whether a taxi association could not adopt a school or schools by having in their taxis paper bags into which people could throw their cans, their bottles, and their waste material for collection for school fundraising projects instead of throwing it out onto the highways.  I was told by one of my friends that littering our highways is a good way of providing jobs, i.e. for people to clean up the roads.  I believe that is the wrong kind of thinking, because it is using taxpayers' money in the most unproductive way.  If they could only save all this litter and cans, and maybe adopt a local school in the township and all these cans go into fundraising projects.  I know a lot of schools are doing this, with wastepaper.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is up.

MR G S BARTLETT:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Nel, to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Chairman.  It is indeed a sad day when we again come to review a budget where, in our view, we are starving the small but, nevertheless, essential departments to the point that they cannot really deliver as they should.  This is what I believe is happening to Conservation unfortunately.  Some people may say there are unavoidable other budgetary pressures.  We would say we recognise those pressures, but the priorities are still wrong, horribly wrong, and we cannot just blame it on national Government for giving us less than our fair share.  Even with that which we received, we should reprioritise and Environment and Conservation would be one of the first candidates to receive a higher prioritisation.

Mr Chairman, I think that many of us in this House, because we are not really divided on this issue, begin to sound like stuck records.  We have, many of us, on many occasions talked about the wonderful natural heritage of this Province, perhaps better than any other in our country, or I certainly am convinced it is, and perhaps better than any other area of its size in Africa or perhaps most of the world.  It has immense tourist potential, and with it therefore also the potential to turn our provincial and South African economy around.

But, sir, there are so many wasted opportunities that we can point to in environmental conservation.  Then we have of course the blight of crime as well.  On top of it all, as if it is not enough, we have the encroaching malaria that is beginning to have a very serious effect on areas such as Maputoland, the area of the Lubombo Spacial Development Initiative where tourism would be the backbone of the initiative.  Now suddenly there appears malaria, the unseen enemy, but nevertheless a very real one.

Sir, the budget, as I say, is an unhappy one and we certainly could not support a budget which lacks the correct priorities as we identify here.  Conservation, as a percentage of our provincial budget, has in just two years dropped by about 30% relative to other portfolios and other expenditures.  We have dropped from R147 million to barely R130 million in the current year on the Conservation programme alone.  The personnel component, if we look at the old Department of Nature Conservation component of Conservation separately, has in just two years risen from 63% to 83%.  That means just two years ago 36% of the budget of the DNC was available for things other than salaries, now it is only 17%.  You have to ask yourself the question, what are those people, well intentioned, perhaps committed as they are, what are they going to do?  How are they going to do their jobs?  The Democratic Party simply says they cannot do their jobs properly with the best will in the world.

Let us look, on the other hand, at the Natal Parks Board component which in the budget is still not integrated, the amalgamation for budget purposes has not been completed.  There we see a severe cut of R30 million this year which is about a 30% cut.  But in fact, in real terms it is closer to 40% once inflation is allowed for.  They too are faced with the dilemma how are they going to keep their personnel gainfully employed?  We have been assured that there is plenty for people to do, which they can do without much money, but quite frankly, those are kind of very low level jobs, maybe important, but nevertheless it is a desperate effort by the old Parks Board to simply keep people gainfully employed.

We really do need to reprioritise.  How are we going to retrieve this situation once it is lost?  There is no way of buying back soil when it has gone down into the ocean.  There is no way of buying back extinct animals once they have gone.  There is really no way of reclaiming developed land for nature conservation and wilderness areas once they have been developed and spoilt.  The time is now, we dare not delay.  The hon member Miss Barrett referred to ORI.  I cannot believe that a Province such as ours with a coastline that we have got can allocate a miserable R200 million to an institution such as ORI.

AN HON MEMBER:  R200 000.

MR W U NEL:  I beg your pardon, R200 000.  R200 million is more than the entire Service gets.  A Freudian slip, or whatever slip.  It is a disgrace and how are we going to retrieve that once that expertise is lost.

Turn to environment and pollution control, R1,2 million.  Environment Impact Management R1,6 million.  Environmental education R2,4 million, again totally inadequate amounts.  Pollution control, how is the Department expected with R1,2 million to control air pollution, and other sources of pollution, the discharges from sewerage pipes and industrial effluent into rivers and the sea?  It is simply an impossibility.  It makes a mockery of the function.

Environmental Impact Assessments, we are told in the report that there are something like 58 applications in the pipeline.  I believe that there are probably hundreds more that are waiting to be forwarded, and perhaps hundreds of other people who do not know how to forward them, and once the impact of this really begins to hit the Department, I honestly do not know how they are going to cope with the budget allocation that they have.  The impact on economic development and growth will be severe.  There are very many small projects that are also now required to go through this EIA procedure.  They do not know how, but even when they do there will be immense delays to the point where it becomes totally uneconomical to even embark on a project.

We may think that small projects do not really matter, but that is the guts of economic growth, and economic potential is going to come from small business.  That is where job creation is going to come from, and we have to have a fast tracking of all of these applications.  Not to ignore the dangers they pose, but to have very quick responses.

Sir, in the end, I question, and the Democratic Party questions the political commitment.  We have heard complaints from the hon Mr Ainslie about the treatment of the Portfolio Committee in relation to the Lake Nhlabane issue.  Irrespective of whether the final recommendation of the Minister and the National Ministry on this particular issue was right or wrong, the way in which the very significant input and effort by members of the Conservation Committee in this House was discarded or treated with contempt is unacceptable.  I can say, having not been personally involved in that subcommittee, that the hon Miss Barrett and the hon Mr Ainslie in particular put in hours and days of effort to pursue this matter.  They held hearings, and they were not the only two that were involved, and produced volumes of information.  In the end one might well ask did anybody ever look at it.  Did anybody ever really pay attention to what was in there.  Regardless of the ultimate conclusion, the whole process is one which says we really do not take you seriously, and quite frankly you are wasting your time.  That is unacceptable.

We heard a plea earlier for environmental education.  The hon Mr Bartlett said that why do the taxis not adopt schools and have wastepaper baskets.  We have often heard, facetiously, people referring to a plastic bag as our national flower.  Now that is not funny.  That really is an embarrassing thing, and there is so much that we could do with some political commitment, also very cheaply, to clean up our environment.

Lastly, I would like to then come back to the Living Marine Resources Bill, which again speaks to me of a political contempt of environmental issues, but also contempt of provinces with very real interests.  We have debated the Bill earlier in this House, but I want to again place on record that the Democratic Party  was particularly distraught by the way in which the National Government ignored our unanimous recommendations for certain amendments, and we did not try and amend everything in that Bill that needed amendment, there were some very serious other problems with it too.  But such as we were able to agree unanimously was simply rejected by the National Government, and I might add, apparently with a touch of political motive behind it as well.

If we are going to allow ourselves to politicise the environment, or to simply put it on the back burner for other more high profile political agendas, we are going to pay a very heavy price in this Province and in this country.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  30 seconds.

MR W U NEL:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  It is a price we cannot afford to pay, and certainly I cannot support.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Nel.  Next on the list is the hon member Mr Gwala, who will speak for 11 minutes.

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  Chairperson, and the hon members of the House.  I wish to thank the hon ~Inkosi~ N J Ngubane for a very good presentation he has made as the budget speech of his Department.  I also wish to congratulate the Department of Nature Conservation for having a highly competent person in the name of Adv. Robin Raubenheimer as its Secretary.  I also wish to thank the senior management of the Department and the support staff who were instrumental in portraying the good image of the Ministry.

Nature conservation is the most important aspect when one deals with the life of man and environment.  Nature has a place in the sun.  Without nature mankind is doomed, and the universe is incomplete.  The spiritual value of nature is enormous.

It must not be forgotten that ~Amakhosi~ were ordained by the Almighty God to rule and have dominion over the earth, and over every living thing, plants and animals that moveth upon the earth.  Therefore ~Amakhosi~ are conservationists themselves.  ~Amakhosi~ are here on earth to preserve nature, and nature is around to promote the development of life and the existence of man.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR M B GWALA: (Leader of the House):  That is why the people of KwaZulu, the people of KwaZulu-Natal supported the existence of the Parks Boards for more than a century now, because the Parks Board plays a major role in preserving our natural forests and game.  Not only for the interest of tourism and national income, but nature itself remains a national asset for generations to come.  

We appreciate the fact that ~Inkosi~ Ngubane is the Head of this Department.  In fact, the Department is suitable for an ~Inkosi~, such as ~Inkosi~ Ngubane.

We hope that the problems we experienced in the past will be phased out, especially with the amalgamation of the Natal Parks Board and the KwaZulu Department of Nature Conservation.  The Minister had alluded to the unified KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service.  We are all proud and satisfied with the amalgamation process.  We hope that the Board that will be established in due course, as the Minister has indicated, will assist the management in the promotion of the capacity building programmes, particularly to the disadvantaged communities.

In the past we had the problem of the Nature Conservation Departments undermining the existence of neighbouring communities.  Parks Boards were seen as the enemies of the neighbouring communities.  By doing that they created the impression that animals and plants were more important than the lives of the people.

If that is the case, the perfect order in the universe will be destroyed and bring strife and chaos on earth when people start ignoring nature for the interest of self-survival.

We are proud of you, and your Department, sir, for addressing the issue of the proposed system of Local Conservation Boards.  This levy system will not only influence private eco-tourism, but will help to build and promote good relationships between the Department and the local communities.

Equity will be requested, and it will be wise to cater for this form of sharing of our natural resources with the people who once occupied the land, especially equity in all tourism developments around our reserves.

If one is a leader in this country of those who are economically deprived, someone like me is also responsible for the welfare of the millions of people among the poorest of the poor, and has a duty to ensure that these people are fed, clothed and educated, and that they have a roof over their heads.  All this cannot be done without money.  We have millions of people who are unemployed.  So to me, any institution that creates jobs comes before everything else.

I wish to thank the management of Nature Conservation for creating job opportunities for the destitute people in areas such as Ndumu, Tembe, Maputoland, Hluhluwe and Mfolozi game park areas that are far from the urban areas where jobs can be found.  I am aware that thousands of people are actually employed by this Department.  I therefore wish to support the budget for 1998/1999.  I thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Next on the list is the hon member Mr Mthembu, who will speak for 12 minutes.

MR S B MTHEMBU:  Thank you, hon Chairperson.  Like other colleagues, I feel compelled to congratulate the Minister of Nature Conservation, ~Inkosi~ N J Ngubane, on his undoubted dedication to lead this Portfolio Committee of Nature Conservation, in a very difficult time, where people are starting to look at the nature conservation in a new manner, since most of the things which were happening before were very confusing.  It was perpetrating the war between the community and the Nature Conservation.

Whenever Nature Conservation is debated in this House, the focus seems to be the on the issue of costs.  Can we afford to spend money on Nature Conservation when there are other priorities, such as job creation, housing and other important matters which the people, especially from the disadvantaged communities consider to be more important.

Fortunately, due to the assistance of the Portfolio Committee, they seem to encourage the people from all racial groups to focus and participate in Nature Conservation.  We now have many issues to focus on.

A healthy economy, on which matters, such as housing delivery and job creation rely, is dependent on the availability of adequate resources.  This is where Nature Conservation becomes crucial, and not only desirable.  Nobody thinks twice when they pay insurance for their house or car because they know that that is protecting a valuable asset.  That is not the issue when we look at Nature Conservation.  Why then the reluctance to spend money on the protection of our own most valuable assets like conservation?

Nature Conservation has another dimension, which is eco-tourism.  That is being hailed as the industry of the future.  It has massive growth potential and, if undertaken with care, is a fully sustainable industry for our future.  It is also an industry that lends itself to be dependent on a healthy, natural environment.  Effective Nature Conservation is the key to the success of the future generation.

Environmental protection should not be confused with Nature Conservation.  Pollution control, and the upgrading of the work and living conditions of our people, is also a priority.  We all have the right to a healthy environment.

In the past our vision has been too narrow.  We have focused mostly on the human environment without considering how important the natural environment is to human living conditions.  In the past the problem has been the lack of access to these resources by the formerly disadvantaged communities.  If Nature Conservation is expected to pay for itself, there is the risk that the cost of access will become too high for these ordinary people again.  They will not have access and will not be able to enjoy the nature which God decided to give to them.  Especially those who were disadvantaged before.

Hon Chairperson, we have a duty as the Government to ensure that we allocate sufficient funds to ensure that our natural areas are available to all.  It is part of our heritage and our culture.  It is our right to experience it.

The management and development of our natural areas must be done in a properly controlled manner.  We have adequate tools at our disposal to ensure this.  The principles of an Integrated Environmental Management have been with us for more than 10 years.  These principles must be applied in natural resource management.  It will ensure that wise decisions are made, because the processes involve public participation.  The involvement of public participation, hon Chairperson, is the new manner of doing things, which builds the relationships between Nature Conservation, the conservation areas and the communities adjacent to those areas.  It will ensure that the affected parties are part of the decision-making process.  This is crucial.  With the development of eco-tourism, the true beneficiaries must be identified.  Communities in and around our natural areas are key stakeholders.  They must be the full beneficiaries and well developed.  People who know exactly what role they must play.

The exclusion of the local communities from planning processes has been a source of conflict in the past.  This has caused a negative perception about the issue of nature conservation.  Some of those perceptions remain.  It is our duty to ensure that the allocation of funds is sufficient to provide for environmental education.  We are of the opinion that many things need to be done without rushing anything.  We must ensure that the people of this country, especially the previously  disadvantaged, are groomed and given enough education in order to participate and contribute on an equal par, like those who have benefitted from the past.

Remember, with the environment, you pay now or you pay later.  I say, pay the insurance now or we will lose this priceless asset, and we will be unable to pay for it in the future.  It is high time that we ensure that we invest financially and otherwise.  I therefore thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Mthembu.  Next to address the House will be the hon member ~Inkosi~ Mdletshe, for 11 minutes.

~INKOSI~ B N MDLETSHE: 

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTION.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!  Please.

~INKOSI~ B N MDLETSHE: HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!  Will the hon member proceed with his speech please.

~INKOSI~ B N MDLETSHE: TRANSLATION:  Chairperson, first of all, I was startled when I saw the small numbers of people who are present across on the other side.  I took it that they are rebelling against ~Inkosi~ Ngubane, because it is clear that they do not want to associate with nature, and that startles me very, very much.

It also startles me, Chairperson, protect me, Chairperson, against those men over there.  Truly protect me.  I can see they will hit me.  It will not be long before they hit me.  I am again startled that representatives of papers are not present when we talk about nature.  Representatives of papers do not bother themselves with being present, even the single one who is present, is present because he ended up arriving.

I was saying, Chairperson, I must say that nature belongs to us.  I must say that our presence here, as you see the IFP almost filling this place, it is because it shows that nature and themselves will never part.

I wish, Chairperson, that I can see this financial situation we are facing.  As I see the financial situation we are facing and support what has being said by the Minister.  It shows, Chairperson, that you are facing a problem that when we talk about nature, it is looked down upon more than anything else.  Yet, when we breathe, we are breathing this very nature.

Secondly, it must be clear to us that we should never include politics in nature.  I saw that, Chairperson, during the time I was visiting there at Ngwavuma, at Induna of KwaDabha.  People were showing that they were politically indoctrinated in issues of nature.

Some were saying they voted so that the game reserve could be removed, so fencing could be moved, showing that the party was deceiving the people.  Also, it was destroying nature itself, because it only wanted the vote.

I think that these are the issues around which we have to unite.  Unite in a way that we are one in fighting things that will kill our nature.  As preparations are being made, Chairperson, preparations are being made for the SDI.  There is no other basis for it except nature.

If we make the mistake that nature is destroyed, we would be killing what is policy for developing our people, and help the abundant poverty.

Therefore, Chairperson, I think it is important that people who are speaking the language that says people will return to the game reserves, should sit down and correct those mistakes that are being made.  Those are mistakes.

I wish, Chairperson, to say that it is important for us to make people listen intently, that it is this thing of preserving our nature which will bring them wealth.  We also have to make them part of development in the things that take place in game reserves.

I think that, Chairperson, there is also a need to look at the problem of land claims we are facing.  Where people want there land returned.  We have to do that by trying to be quick in this, because in the end, it prohibits the sustainability of our nature, while we wait that the problem of the people's land is corrected.  We have to do this while teaching them that if they want this land, it is the loss of their heritage.

We also have to, Chairperson, look at the problems that exist between people and the game reserve, because I too, have built next to one.  That the problems are quickly removed, because they are the ones that hurt the relationship that exists between game reserves and the people.

I think that, Chairperson, for you not to protect me from that member who is talking, is very, very dangerous.  The member is complaining about a hippopotamus, saying someone should kill a hippopotamus for it.  It is because the member does not like nature.  [LAUGHTER]

Even now, the member continues to say a hippopotamus should be slaughtered for him.

Protect me.  Who is to praise the Minister of this Department?  I was pleased when I heard my colleague, the hon member Gwala, praising that it was good that this department is under the management of an ~Inkosi~.  The position of an ~Inkosi~ and nature is something that you cannot separate.

That is why ~Inkosi~ Mbovu has initiated that there be a community levy at game reserves that will develop communities neighbouring game reserves.  In other words, people should see that these game reserves are for their benefit rather than their death.

I think that, Chairperson, people have to be encouraged.  We now have to start a way of training them.  Train them as tour operators, because that is what will help us in making them skilled and able to know these internal things.

I was emotionally moved in another place when I saw, Chairperson, that people of that area now know so much about nature.  There is nothing as nice as knowing the history of nature.  Knowing how a bird lives, knowing how a tree lives.  I was pleased when I saw that the Minister's Department is not just sitting back when it comes to ensuring that our children are trained, trained in issues of nature.  Protect me, sir.

I think that, Chairperson, if we do not invest in our children, we will lose.  Protect me, Chairperson, again, against Dr Sutcliffe and others.

Therefore, Chairperson, I am thinking that the Zulu language sometimes says, "The bull is among the calves", which means the leader is among the young.  Also, it is vital to take the knowledge we have and give it to our children with the aim of knowing that there will be progress in nature and its protection.

I am pleased, Chairperson, that we are part of all the development programmes for game reserves.  It is the result of the Minister who made us feel part of the development of game reserves.  There is no development taking place inside game reserves that we are not a part of.

We wish that the existing development could be increased.  People from outside should be encouraged to do things with their hands to support the development of nature.

With these words, Chairperson, I am very grateful.  I am saying, let us hold each other, let us embrace each other on this, let us unite and be one thing.  And those who are absent, tell them that they should be present here in Parliament in the future.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON. [We are very grateful to the hon member].  Next on the list is the hon member Mr Mkhwanazi, who will speak for 10 minutes.

MR J D MKHWANAZI: Oh, selfish people have been startled that I too, will have an opportunity today.  Mr Chairperson, I am grateful for this opportunity].

God created this earth, and all that is on it.  When he had created everything he saw that it was good.  Then he said "Let us create a man, (man here meaning person) to our own image".  When he had created man and woman he commanded them to reign over the whole creation.  What does this mean?  This is what we are talking about today.

It means that this Department is doing exactly what God commanded.  I want to confess, if not for anything, not only to be forgiven in heaven, that when I was herding cattle as a small boy I caused havoc to nature, because TRANSLATION:  We used to kill birds and roast them, eat young birds and eggs, hunt and kill rabbits.  Today, there are no more rabbits in bulk in our area.  We did that so we could eat, but I am grateful that now our eyes have been opened.  T/E

We have this Department which is working hard to conserve what God gave to us. 
TRANSLATION:  God gave us land, good people.  When we talk about the land, people think that you are dreaming.  This land, and everything that is in it, was given to us by God, and everything that is in it is ours, the birds and the rabbits.  We are supposed to preserve them.  T/E

I want to thank the Department, through the Minister, that an effort is being made to conserve the little that we have.  We must not also be blind to the fact that in the rural areas [belonging to Africans.  Those things were finished] because most of the land was taken away from the indigenous people of this country.  So they had pieces of land where they [fought over game and birds, fighting over the small piece of land].  It is not because the people meant to destroy.  [destroy nature, it is because people did not have land as they still do not have it today.  We have to look for land, and people should get it].

Having said that, I also want to say that it is unfortunate that this Department has had its budget cut.  If this Department had been given more money, it has the potential of reproducing and regenerating funds.  But I do hope and believe that in spite of the little that they have, they will continue to generate funds.  Some of the hon members have told us about the advantages of having this Department supported.  It also affects tourism and affects many other things.

Now 

TRANSLATION:  Now the ~Inkosi~ of the Mdletshe people spoke of land, about which people are complaining.  I am complaining about the land of my people over there at Dududu.  Ndabezitha, I am glad that in these game reserves and areas that are being made, such as St Lucia, there is now this policy that says there should be a levy, monies that are received there to help residents of that area.

That makes me forgive, because all these years, the owners of the land did not benefit from the Parks Board or from game reserves.  T/E
 
That is why [That is why they were poachers.  And when our people go and hunt their game and then it is said they are poachers].

It is because they did not feel that they were part of, or had ownership of those conservation areas.  But if we tell them now that this all  [That is all the hippopotamus which are in siBhayi are yours and they should not be eaten any how.  They should be eaten when there is a function, at Christmas.  Our game is yours.  People will feel better].

MR W U NEL:.  [Now I am going to get game].

MR J D MKHWANAZI: 

TRANSLATION:  Wild pig can be eaten and all other edible game, but they should be eaten properly.

Let me proceed and go to what the minister talked about, this thing, transformation.  The minister himself over there said he will briefly talk about transformation, but in fact, sir, Ndabezitha, we want transformation.  T/E

We want all these things to have been transformed yesterday, because we want the people to feel that they were part of the development, and the transformation.  The Minister has two Africans and one lady in his Department and that is positive development, but after four years we believe that we should have more.  Dr Hughes will not last forever.  I do not know how old he is, but he is not young like myself.  [LAUGHTER]  Who is going to take over from Dr Hughes?  Dr Hughes is doing a wonderful job, but who is going to take over from him?  Will you have to import somebody from Ireland or from somewhere?

AN HON MEMBER:  My son.  My son will do it.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  I come to the next point, the point of training.  I do see there is some training going on, but I believe, Mr Minister, we must do serious training and send people to the universities.  If these courses are not available in this country, take them abroad to go and acquire skills so as to prepare them to take over this important job.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute.  One minute left.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  One minute. [We often say that] whatever is done, it must represent the population and demography of this country. [we are not discriminating Africans.  We are just openly and clearly telling the truth.  Thank you, Chairperson]. 


THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Mkhwanazi.  Next to address the House will be the hon member Mr MacKenzie, for 11 minutes.

MR M M MACKENZIE:  Chairperson, I wish to congratulate the Minister, not only for the comprehensive report presented, but also for his fatherly care of the newly amalgamated Nature Conservation Services. [Thank you, Ndabezitha, for the marriage of these two political parties].

Our thanks also go to Mr Robin Raubenheimer for his sound administration and support of the Minister, [Even in future be willing, old sport].

The hardy annuals have all been heard, and to repeat them here will consume debating time.  It is, however, hoped that the media has absorbed the message that much vaunted tourism income can only be sustained if our proclaimed areas are given sufficient budgetary support.  No one can deny that the primary destination is our game reserves, and to expect these areas and the attendant support services to operate smoothly after budget cuts, is to sorely lack realism.  We are once again deluding ourselves.

The major threat to the long term future of our reserves is still the highly emotive issue of land claims which, it must be clearly recognised, are entirely understandable when the state of penury of the rural peoples is assessed.  The idea of community involvement of equity has now caught on and everyone in this field is glibly tripping this concept off their tongues.  No one yet has come up with positive case scenario's for us to look at, that is based on actual practice, but I am sure that driven by the need, we will find a menu of possibilities that will emerge.  It is stressed here that good relationships must be emphasised between our Nature Conservation Services and the communities that surround our reserves in order to get rid of the policeman image that prevailed from the past.

In the past, the Natal Parks Board Conservation Service grew by parkinsonian proportions, and the pure conservation division did not appear to dominate as it should have.  Now with our budget constraints, the vital core function of conservation and preservation of our reserves must be unimpeded by any other support function or ancillary activity, notwithstanding the stated need to use this route as a source of funding.

Emerging from workshops is the now streamlined concept of classification of protected areas with wilderness areas in the first category where they should be.  No one connected to conservation should be under any illusions whatsoever as to the importance of these areas.  They are the very core around which a protected area is established.  Anyone who, for reasons of ignorance or just plain stupidity, allows these areas to come under threat by development is guilty of a crime of negligence which will resound down the years.

The concentric rings depicting lower categories of protected areas begin to include community occupation until the outer ring fully incorporates rural human habitations in symbiosis with wild diversity.  The new Environmental Impact Regulations are welcomed, and it is hoped that this will lead to the fast tracking of this vital function.  The present exorbitant costs of EIAs in sensitive areas severely affects development, and in some cases, may result in rural communities reacting militantly to delays which in turn will reduce the sensitive area to a lesser category which no longer is able to attract a tourist.

On the issue of Lake Nhlabane.  I believe that this issue has now been blown out of all proportion, which was once based on a point of principle.  Lake Nhlabane has now assumed a debating factor far above its station.  Lake Nhlabane was already a spoiled area.  We are now listening to a fight on principle.  There are far more important things, members, than Lake Nhlabane for us to think about.

The present state of control of environmental transgressions ...

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR M M MACKENZIE: [You just keep quiet a little bit].  Is limited by the minimal budget given, and until such time as this vital watchdog sector is supported by better funding, it will not be able to do its job, and our Province will accordingly suffer.  It is suggested that this section, and the young lady who leads it, will seek assistance from the academic sector for scientific evaluations, and to work closely with NGOs, thus not only spreading its influence wider, but also gaining credible support from recognised disciplines, and not then spending our very small resources.

As the hon Premier suggested at the recent SDI launch, it is now very necessary to involve the private sector and the likes of IsiVuno and their role in development of tourist oriented projects in underdeveloped community areas is to be supported to the full.  The KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service is clearly expected to support such initiatives, and to be seen to be encouraging the above concept, and never working against it for whatever reason.

The Lubombo SDI is to be welcomed as a concept that can aid conservation if it is correctly accessed, and therefore in turn will bring tourists with their money to help alleviate the lot of the impoverished.  It is imperative, however, that the Province be consulted, particularly with regard to development that is aimed at rural communities.  There is already evidence of irresponsible private sector promoters who are undermining a carefully crafted process of joint responsibility for development with environmental sensitivity, and long term gains for the affected community.  Some of these mischievous promoters spread totally false and grossly misleading ideas that heighten expectations.  This is not only cruel, but it is also irresponsible.

The Conservation Service still does not reflect the demographics of this Province, especially in the senior ranks.  If we do not want to attract negative flak, and no one does, then I believe there is a need to rectify this imbalance by training, if needs be.

In this interregnum period between Boards, where there has been a vacuum of policy direction, it is sincerely hoped that no major policy changes have been made that will have to be undone when the new Board finds its feet.  However, if the Nature Conservation Service has sought the support and direction of the Minister, then hopefully no irretrievable steps will have been taken.  The new Board will not be a rubber stamp for anyone, but it will be a sage policy making body.

It remains for me to compliment the hon John Jeffery for his role as Chairman, and in particular for the efficient manner in which he was able to bring the legislative process of the Bill to a successful conclusion.  Thus providing conservation with a reliable base structure.  As Study Group Chair, I thank all of our members for their input.  I have much pleasure in supporting the proposed budget.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Next on the list will be the hon member Mr Edwards, who will address the House for nine minutes.

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  First, my congratulations also go to the Minister, hon Mr Ngubane, on his budget speech, and to the management of the Conservation Service for their contribution in finding ways and means of operating within an unacceptable, and miserly budget.

AN HON MEMBER:  Miserly?

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  Yes, miserly.  In addition, for their commitment and wisdom in bringing about a smooth transition in the amalgamation of the Natal Parks Board and the Directorate of Nature Conservation.

Mr Chairman, while it is true that the amalgamation process has not all been plain sailing, the marriage is almost complete.  We await the appointment of the new Board for the Nature Conservation Service.  This has taken somewhat longer than anticipated.  I am not laying the blame at anyone's door, not even the subcommittee which I serve on, but wish to point out that the tenure of office of the old Parks Board expired on 1 April this year, and not to have a Board structure in place is certainly not desirable.

While the management structures of the new Service are doing admirably in keeping efficient administration operating for the conservation effort, the existence of the Board is essential to guide and provide policy and direction.

Special congratulations should go to Dr George Hughes, Mr Wayne Elliot and other senior management staff for holding the fort in the meantime.  The subcommittee, in addressing the process of recommendations to the hon Minister for appointment of the Board, noted certain shortcomings in the legislative provisions.  Creative thinking is needed for the Service to succeed in meeting its goals on a drastically reduced combined budget.  We have all seen the amount for Nature Conservation, the budget had been cut by R25,3 million on a total budget of R155,3 in 1997/1998.

Innovative steps, I believe, are happening.  We hear that certain of the staff have no petrol to operate vehicles, and are going out to businesses and asking them to contribute diesel so they can keep running and doing essential conservation service.  It is a sad state, but it is being done and it is innovative.

It is clear to create additional revenue and cut wasteful expenditure, the Service will have to operate on strict business principles.  For this reason, some consider that the Board number should be increased from the ceiling of some 14 members currently looked at to ensure representivity and also business acumen.  Certain categories should be increased and strengthened with a fast growing spirit of business enterprise permeating the ethos of nature conservation, as the hon Minister himself espoused in his speech.

It is essential that the category of Board members, with extensive knowledge of business, be expanded or at least doubled in addition to include persons or a person from the emerging small business sector.  In the same way, persons representing agriculture should be expanded to include a Board member from the developing sector.

The hon Minister also has the prerogative to appoint additional members to enhance the structure of the Board, and this number of three could also be increased to include entrepreneurs to strengthen the ability of the Nature Conservation Service to generated additional income, and as far as possible become self-sustaining.

It appears there has been some delay in finalising nominations from the House of Traditional Leaders, but in the interests of good governance, I do ask the hon Minister to expedite the appointment of the new Board.  In addition, to look at the amendment to the legislation in order to enhance the Boards ability.

Environment only became a provincial competence in 1994.  R5,3 million has been allocated in the budget for this year.  I am looking particularly at waste management and pollution control, very important elements of this programme.  In particular, I want to deal with something below that, and that is littering and how this affects our urban and rural environment.

While we sit here, Mr Chairman, in Pietermaritzburg, as part of the seat of our Parliament, those who have managed to find time to wander into the town and the lanes of Pietermaritzburg, will no doubt have noticed the filth and litter in the streets and lanes.  The media today writes of the rat plague in Pietermaritzburg.  Infestation of rodents in the city centre has been known for some time.  If we go into Chancery and Change Lanes, the rats there will give my cat a good fight, I can tell you.  [LAUGHTER]  But they are nurtured by litter and unwanted food and refuse just thrown into the gutters and streets by uncaring and unthinking litterbugs.

Recently, I personally witnessed live fowls for resale being slaughtered outside the Technical College Pietermaritzburg.  There is nothing wrong with selling live fowls, but not to slaughter them there.  On the pavement in Church Street a dead dog, I saw myself, lying in an advanced stage of decomposition in a storm water culvert in Raven Street.  Nobody seems to care,  the people who litter and dump, the health authorities and certainly not the Pietermaritzburg Local Council.

The matters referred to were reported to the local council health department.  I did it myself, but nothing seems to have improved and very few seem to care.  Also no one is ever prosecuted for this littering and dumping in transgression of the by-laws.  In ~Ulundi~, our second House of Provincial Parliament, visitors will see many wild flowers growing in the countryside and by the roadside.  We could admire them if we were not overpowered by the sight of thousands of plastic packets of all shapes and colours stuck in the bushes, the fences and the thorn trees.  Really, in ~Ulundi~ we need to clean up our act.

If you visit countries in Europe, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, you will find in particular very little litter can be seen, and certainly the people of those countries show their anger by tapping you on the shoulder and saying, "Put that litter in the bin".

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  While we in KwaZulu-Natal have instituted a number of initiatives, and some good initiatives, to control unacceptable littering, for instance, "Keep KwaZulu-Natal Clean", "Keep Pietermaritzburg Clean", and so on.  These NGOs have certainly done incredible work in the anti-litter campaign and are to be congratulated on the work done, but they are fast losing the battle, as many people in apparent defiance of civilised norms deliberately throw cans, left over food, other litter, cigarette packets, you name it, into our streets, out of car windows or onto the highways.  It appears some say it will keep the street sweepers in jobs, but really, it is just an uncaring public.  Building our economy is essential, but uncontrolled littering leads to great degradation of our environment, and has a negative impact on something that we should be doing, promoting our tourism industry.

It is high time that stricter laws, and law enforcement were instituted.  We also need a firm resolve at every level, even members of this House, to introduce a programme of education and code of conduct particularly amongst our youth.  Our children, your children, our grandchildren of all cultures who no doubt are the chief offenders.  We are all in the meantime wasting millions of Rands in doing unnecessary cleaning up operations in all areas of our Province.  That money could be better spent on education and so forth.  Even the pristine areas of our Drakensberg parks and conservation areas, hundreds of tons of litter are removed annually.  Really, these are people who are tourists and supposed to love nature.

The thrust of tourism in our economy and the environment is massive.  It is high time we cleaned up our act.  We need to establish a culture in environmental cleanliness and pollution control before we literally drown in our own filth.  All people are responsible, not only the ~Amakhosi~, all people are responsible.  Society must be taught to commit itself to a healthy environment.

It is heartening, Mr Chairman, however, that the Director of pollution control is vigorously addressing the development of a Provincial Waste Management policy,....

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  ....of implementing long awaited National Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations.  With the limited funds, Director Mrs Sarah Allen and staff have an enormous task ahead in controlling environmental pollution.  You have the full support of all members, I am sure.

Local Boards are also very important and their appointment must not be delayed.  Those working and resident in an area are best suited to control the development of their particular environment, and with this, eco-tourism. 

With that, Mr Chairman, I reluctantly support this budget.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Edwards.  Next to speak will be the hon member Mr Tarr, who will address the House for 11 minutes.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Mr Chairman, I would like to start off today by referring very briefly to two documents which I have here.  Members of the Portfolio Committee will be familiar with the draft report which was tabled, relating to the preliminary state of the environment, prepared and tabled in January this year.

Now, Mr Chairman, for anybody who has taken the trouble to glance very briefly through that report, all is certainly not well in our Province.  The physical environment is suffering and the human environment is suffering.  Many of the environmental problems which are outlined in the report itself are irreversible.  So it means what is going wrong today cannot be put right ever in the future, particularly in areas like soil erosion.  Quite clearly, it behoves all of us in this House, and in this country, to start taking environmental matters seriously, and also to start doing something about it.

The other document which makes a start on addressing the problems referred to, is the recent White Paper which was tabled last week.  It is a White Paper from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism on Environmental Management Policy in South Africa.

Now, Mr Chairman, I am sure many other members have had a chance to peruse this White Paper, and I must say that for a start I welcome its introduction, and also fully support the sentiments which are expressed in the White Paper.  Quite clearly a White Paper, being what it is, is not very definitive and prescriptive in many areas, and over the months, and I hope it does not go to years ahead, it is up to us in this Legislature and other Legislatures to give content to the recommendations in the White Paper.

Very briefly, there are seven areas or seven goals set out in the White Paper, which relate to the national environmental strategy and action plan.  Briefly, they are looking at an effective institutional framework.  What is the present institutional framework?  Do we need new institutions, and do we need new legislation?  I would argue that we, in fact, do need new institutions and we do need new legislation, even if to deal with the hundreds of bits of legislation scattered throughout our statute books that deal with environmental issues.  

A third goal is holistic and integrated planning and management.  We have heard it mentioned here today that a lot of the planning aspects are already being dealt with in the Department of Local Government and Housing, and perhaps this might be a logical home for planning issues which relate to land use and air pollution, water pollution, whatever it is.

Another goal, Mr Chairman, is the question of participation in partnerships in environmental governance.  It is absolutely vital that all players, from the conservation authorities to the ~Amakhosi~ are all actively involved in the process.

Of course education is a further goal.  All communities at all levels should be made environmentally aware and understand the importance that it has for all of us.  International co-operation is the sixth goal, and information management is the last.

Mr Chairman, I hope that we will deal seriously with this document in our Committee.  What I am really hoping is that we in our Committee will not simply leave it to national level to take this White Paper process further.  I think it behoves us in this Province to look at the White Paper, and we should make serious inputs where we believe we can make a contribution.  We have many highly knowledgeable people, bodies and organisations in the Province who can do that.  I think it would be a dereliction of our duty if we do not, through our Provincial Portfolio Committee, through the Nature Conservation Service, actively involve ourselves in taking this further.  We do have the National Council of Provinces which provides us, as a Provincial Legislature, together with whoever is assisting us with the mechanisms to actually take this process right into the national level.

Mr Chairman, that then brings me to an issue which I would like to address within this context.  The implications in this White Paper give the impression that it will be up to the State or the Government to put the necessary structures in place, create the necessary State structures as well, and to give effect to the White Paper itself.  But I would like to argue that the White Paper does not exclude the possibility of the private sector taking over some of the responsibilities related to environmental issues.

Here I would like to mention, for example, the whole question of an environmental audit.  Now, we in this House all know of the woeful inadequacy of our present budget.  We know there are not funds available to do the job that has got to be done, and I think it is wishful thinking if we are going to sit here and imagine that these funds are going to become available in the future.  They simply are not.  There are too many other pressing demands on our scarce resources.

I would like to argue that environmental audits can be carried out very effectively by the private sector.  Certain sectors in the economy, certain organisations comply with an accounting audit each year.  Why should it not be made possible that they comply with an environmental audit so they can also get a clean environmental bill of health, the same as they get a clean accounting bill of health?

If I am able to persuade my other colleagues in this House that that is worthwhile, it is perhaps an issue we could take to national level, because we would obviously need legislation to set up and regulate the audit profession, and also legislation which will enable the Minister of Environmental Affairs to make regulations regarding acceptable levels of environmental standards for instance, or whatever the case may be.

Hand in hand with an environment audit, of course, is the question of an environmental protection agency, who will be entrusted with the oversight of implementing environmental legislation.  Now, Mr Chairman, it is a moot point as to whether an EPA will do a better job than a State department.  Of course, if they both do it properly and run it well, the one can probably do it just as well as the other.  That is something which we perhaps need to debate here.

My view is that the EPA seems to be the direction in which many other countries are progressing, and maybe an EPA is something which we also need to be looking at in this House.  We need to be doing research, finding out what is happening elsewhere so we can make considered recommendations in this regard.

So, Mr Chairman, with those few comments, I certainly hope that we in this House will seriously take part in the process which has been started with the tabling of this White Paper, and I would certainly hope that all the officials in the departments, and also the officials in the Nature Conservation Service, will become actively involved in the process which will take place in bringing the goals set out in this White Paper to fruition.

Mr Chairman, with those few words, I also reluctantly support the budget which is before us, and can only hope that in the months ahead we are able to assist in some way in enabling this budget to be met.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Tarr.  Next on the list of speakers is the hon member Mrs Cronje, who will address the House for 12 minutes.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Thank you, Chairperson.  I know I am competing with Bafana Bafana.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  But I am not cutting my speech down.  My throat is also very dry.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  My throat is also very dry because, like motor cars, members also need a bit of fuel to run on, and I have had various people commenting that there is absolutely no fuel in the kitchen, leaded or unleaded.  Now we will take unleaded fuel please, but give us something to drink.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  I want to start off by looking at Programme 3, which deals with the environment.  As various people have said, R5,3 million has been allocated to the entire environmental function, and this has to be divided between three programmes, including pollution control.  By the way, my colleague the hon Mr Ainslie said if you are in Delhi, it is like smoking 30 cigarettes, if you are in New Mexico, it is like smoking 50, something like that.  Now I want to tell you, if you are in the reading room next door, you cannot even breathe.  You need an oxygen mask.  So I think the Department should start their pollution control right here.  You know, charity begins at home.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  The Environmental Impact Management is one of the programmes, and I will come back to that, and then environmental education, both are absolutely crucial.

If you ask me if we can fulfil these crucial functions on R5,3 million, I have to honestly say no, not as they ought to be fulfilled.  Of course I know there is no more money, and of course I also know that it takes most people a very long time to realise just how fundamental to human existence the abovementioned three programmes are.  Only when people realise how fundamental it is, will the environment be treated as the budget priority that it should be.

Let us, for instance, look at Environmental Impact Management.  Proper management of environmental impacts is an absolute precondition to sustainable development, and sustainable development is not only a constitutional requirement, it is the only imperative for the survival of the human race.

In an ideal situation I must confess that I also want no development whatsoever.  You know, Adam and Eve and the apple tree, and all those things ... I mean, that is paradise.  We would all like to live in paradise.  Unfortunately that is not where we are.

AN HON MEMBER:  When Adam said to Eve: "Ek het jou lief", she said: "Well, give it back, I am cold".  [LAUGHTER]

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  The dilemma that we face is how do we balance the competing, and often conflicting needs of this ideal kind of environment and development?

In a very useful book titled: "The Gyre Atlas of Planet Management", this dilemma or challenge is described very succinctly, and the authors say:

	We are a privileged generation, living at a great turning point in the story of the earth, and humanity.  Faced by multiplying crises we are challenged to a creative endeavour surpassing that required of any earlier society.  To survive, homo sapiens must now advance from a pioneer species, which is aggressive, prolific and greedy for resources, into a climax species which recognises ecological limits, swops assertiveness for co-operation and expresses self-regulation as the golden rule.

After initially setting ourselves apart from nature as people, as man, homo sapiens, we must become a part of nature again.  That is a challenge indeed, and one that requires a sweeping revolution in the way we think, act and feel, in how we use our technology, and above all, how we manage ourselves.

A fundamental part of that challenge that we face as modern man, is that we recognise that we are global players, and that a village mentality will simply not equip us to deal with the demands and imperatives of our time.  The world community is evermore interdependent, with a growing commitment to internationalism.  This is of particular importance as far as the economic and environmental needs are concerned.  As part of nature, humankind has certain needs, expectations and aspirations which bring about certain economic imperatives.  It is simply therefore not possible to object to every development, be it a hotel complex in a coastal village somewhere at Rooi Els, or a shopping complex at Knysna, or a new campsite at one of our nature reserves.  Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not saying that those specific developments must necessarily go ahead.  I am merely citing them as examples.  You can virtually open any newspaper on any given day and a similar issue will be reported and debated with the inevitable mudslinging that goes with it.  Think of the St Lucia controversy, and actually how at one level naive, and at another level stale and just plain boring that debate became.

But this is where Government is very often faced with real difficulties.  Do we give the go-ahead to development?  If yes, why?  If no, why not?  And if we do, how do we monitor such development?  In other words, how do we manage it?  What should guide Government in making decisions about development?  With the new EIA regulations, this becomes a fundamental question, and a fundamental problem.

The answer, or at least part of the answer must surely be sound policies and sound legislation to give effect to such policies, followed by the capacity and the political will to implement those policies and legislation, and then of course one needs money to do all those things.

Just a quick aside to the hon Mr Tarr:  The process has not started with the White Paper.  This Province has virtually written that White Paper.  I do not know where Mr Tarr parked off while that process was taking place, but most of us are quite familiar with that White Paper, as is the Department.

In the case of our Provincial Department of Environment Affairs, I do not believe that this task to implement the EIA regulations can be done with R1,6 million.  I honestly do not think they can do it.  In my opinion, it therefore becomes essential - and I think this is what was quite heartening about the hon Minister's speech - that there is an awareness of the fact that we have to co-operate as Government departments.  It becomes essential that we look at the way in which our Government departments are structured.

That means we should assess the logic, the effectiveness and the financial implications of the way in which some functions have been divided.  For instance, the Department of Local Government has a very large environmental component in their planning division, and this was acknowledged by the Minister.  It might make sense to put some programmes together under one department in order to use scarce resources - human as well as financial - to maximum effect.

I want to look at the economic needs in the context of environmental needs, or environmental needs in the context of economic needs, whichever way you want to look at it.  There is a welcome shift in world opinion towards responsible care and sustainable use of resources, and the twin issues of environment and development are now at the top of international and national agendas.  We as Government must ensure that they also become a top item in community and individual agendas here in South Africa, and in our Province.  As Government, we must demonstrate a strong commitment to popular participation in decision-making on issues affecting people, as this lies at the heart of the transition and the transformation that is required.

I have spoken about sustainable development as being fundamental.  The most common definition of sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present, while not compromising the needs of future generations.

I also just want to say a few words about quality of life.  It also needs to be borne in mind that development is only real if it makes our lives better, and it must therefore be measured in terms of quality of life.  In order to achieve a better quality of life for all, it is essential to integrate environmental management into all policies and decision-making processes in Government Ministries and departments.  Thus harmony must be sought between environmental policies and other Government policies.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Two minutes left.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Thank you.  Time goes very quickly.  My hon colleague, the hon Mr Cele, came in for a lot of criticism from the National Party this morning when he criticised Mr Serfontein, the Provincial Commissioner.  I know it is not customary to criticise a Government official, but I am very sorry: In this case we will break that custom for the simple reason that the Government official also broke the custom.  He descended into the political arena.  He chose to act like a politician, and was therefore inviting criticism.  We will therefore criticise him.

Commissioner Serfontein says, and I want to look at this from an environmental perspective, says:

	Since the matter was first mooted ...

This is now of his camps

	... by the Provincial Portfolio Committee for the Environment ...

I am trying to conserve time.  Initially he says:

	Their motivation ...


That is now us on the Environment Portfolio Committee

	... for wanting the police removed from their existing sites was to the effect that they posed a threat to the environment as they were situated in pristine areas controlled by the KZN Parks Board.

By the way, he is wrong on the KZN Parks Board.  There was never such a Parks Board, and that was not the name of the Department either.

	In subsequent meetings, however, the motivation changed and it was stated that these camps were targeted for tourist development.

Chairperson, on 2 April 1996, when I was Chairperson of the Committee, I wrote to the hon Minister, and I said the following:

	As far as the use, and often abuse of State facilities in conservation areas by the privileged few is concerned, we believe that the principal position is quite clear.  It is totally unacceptable that State facilities should be used and abused in this manner.  State facilities should be available on an equitable basis to all members of the public, or not to anybody at all.  The area under discussion is a prime tourist area and can generate a lot of revenue for the Province, if used correctly, and therefore consequently we ask the Minister for an immediate moratorium so that we could investigate the matter fully.

There was no vacillation, and therefore the concluding remark of the politician Provincial Commissioner Serfontein, where he says:

	We are constrained to deliver service by the needs of the communities, and cannot allow the dictates of politicians, whose vacillating motives are anything but to determine when, where and how we should provide a policing service.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon members's time is up.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  You know, cowboys do not cry.  If one wants to be a politician, one must take the heat or get out of the kitchen.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is up.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Lastly, I wish to call upon the hon Minister of Environmental Affairs to respond to the debate.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Thank you very much, Mr Chairperson, and the hon House.  I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, and his Portfolio Committee for the smooth way in which we address our problems on the environment.  We have worked as a family, since the time when the hon member Mrs Ina Cronje was the Chairperson of the Committee until the position was taken over by the hon member Mr J Jeffery.

In fact, I have been getting so many messages, little papers here, informing me that there is soccer and therefore I must try and be short.  [LAUGHTER]

AN HON MEMBER:  I agree.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  What happens if I do not agree with that?  [LAUGHTER]

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  There will be no one here in this House.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  In replying to the hon members, especially the hon member Mr J Jeffery, I agree with the hon member that the Department needs more money in order to succeed.  It is true that there is no province in the country where environment and conservation have been separated.  At the same time, he must remember that there is no province in South Africa where Local Government and Traditional Affairs are separated, except in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.  Therefore even environment and conservation should be separated if possible.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Yes, yes, if possible.  

AN HON MEMBER:  No, put them together.

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  As far as the two Trusts are concerned, because the new Conservation body is new, we are still going to address that problem.

As far as the Police Services and the army moving out of the Maputoland area, I do not know what to say.  The last speaker touched on this issue and she suggested that there should be a moratorium on the activities of the Police Services in that area.  It was impossible for me to just inform the Police Department, the SANDF, the Health Department, the Agriculture Department, the Chamber of Mines, to stop their activities without discussing anything with them.  Treating them as if they were there illegally.  They applied to be there and they have PTOs to be there.  Therefore it was impossible for me to just inform them to leave the area.  That is why I decided that we should sit down together with all these structures and decide on a plan of action.  That is why now eventually the police and the SANDF have agreed to move out of the area.  We are still going to approach the Department of Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Chamber of Mines.  We cannot just chase them away.

Coming to hon member Miss Barrett.  As most of the people have said, there is no money for eco-tourism facilities.  Departments suffer as a result of the problems experienced by other departments, because we work together as a body.  She raised the question of why some departments have to suffer because other departments have failed to manage their financial structures.  In fact, we work together as a body here in the Province.  Therefore if one department experiences a problem, automatically all the other departments experience problems.  If you suffer from a headache, the whole body is affected.  Therefore we cannot ignore the other departments, just because we are not affected.  That is why we tried to do what we did.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Thank you very much, Doctor.  As far a the hon member Mr Ainslie is concerned, I think ...

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Oh he has left?  I will come back to him.  As far as Mr Bartlett is concerned, in order to address the issue of ORI etcetera, we need more money.  At present we do not have the capacity.  We could not even employ staff to deal with this thorny issue.  I do thank this hon member for his contribution.

When it comes to the hon member Mr Nel.  I agree with the hon member that there is really a big budget cut.  The only solution to the problem , as the member has said, is to reprioritise.  It is what we are going to do in our Department, as other departments will be doing.

I wish to thank the hon member Mr Gwala who exposed that ~Amakhosi~ were conservationists.  It is correct that we preserved nature during our time of Government.  It was interesting to hear that the hon member spoke positively about amalgamation.  I am also grateful to hear that the member spoke about the Local Boards.

When it comes to the hon member Mr Mthembu.  I agree with the hon member that the Province should provide more money towards Nature Conservation and the Environment.  I thank the member for his constructive contribution, especially in dealing with Local Boards and the other structures of my Department.

The same applies to the hon ~Inkosi~ Mdletshe, who spoke about the same issues.  It is correct to cautiously consider the issue of land claims within our conservation areas.  The member also addressed the issue of community levies which assist in developing the communities adjacent to nature reserves.

I wish to report to the members that during the time of the DNC, the surrounding communities received about R150 000 per year to assist the communities.  With the community levy that has been earmarked or proposed by the new body, about R3 million will be raised to help adjacent communities.  Therefore it is a step in the right direction.

I agree with everything the hon member Mr Mkhwanazi said.  I include the hon member Mr MacKenzie and agree with what he said about addressing these environmental issues.  I also agree and thank the hon members Mr Edwards, and Mr Tarr for their contributions.

Then last, but not least, we came to this thorny issue of Lake Nhlabane.  Mr Chairperson, and the hon House, we have been dealing with this matter of Nhlabane for quite a long time.  I do not know what is wrong with some of the members here.  I am sorry that Mr Ainslie, the hon member, has left.  When we addressed this issue of Lake Nhlabane, I did request the DNC to consider the matter.  The Natal Parks Board, my Department, and other bodies that were interested in conservation.  I agree that they said no to the elevation of the weir.  That I agree with.  I do not dispute that.  But on the other side of the coin, there were some organisations that agreed to the elevation of the weir.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  You must ask me to produce, do not say no, ask me to produce you know.  Do not say no.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Right, just listen then, Mr Chairperson.  In fact, I am addressing you and not the members.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  Then there was an argument from the side of RBM.  The weir was built in such a way that the water assimilates underneath.  What they said was once you have more water inside the weir, there will be more pressure.  That pressure will allow more water to go through that weir.  We had to make a recommendation to the Cabinet.  It was not ~Inkosi~ Ngubane who made that recommendation.  The recommendation was approved by the Cabinet, not by myself.  It did not come from me.  It was a conditional recommendation.  It was recommended on condition that the concerns of the Portfolio Committee of my Department were addressed.  It was a conditional recommendation.

The Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry also made a conditional recommendation as did the Minister of Land Affairs, the hon Minister Mr Hanekom.  Nobody is complaining about the Ministers at national level, I have to take the wrap because I am an IFP Minister.  Those two ANC Ministers, nobody troubles them.  They have made the same recommendations.  Unfortunately it did not come from me.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please! 

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security):  It came from the Cabinet.  In fact there is no sense in talking about this matter now.  We have dealt with this matter.  The people are busy pushing the matter. 

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please! 

~INKOSI~ N J NGUBANE: (Minister of Traditional and Environmental Affairs and Safety and Security, when the ~Inkosi~ is speaking, you should not speak].  [LAUGHTER]

Therefore, Mr Chairperson, sir, I propose that vote 11 of my budget speech be adopted.  I thank you, sir.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, hon Minister.  That brings us to the end of this debate.  At this point I wish to hand back to the Deputy Speaker to close the proceedings for today.  As such I will step down and hand over to him.


	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE SUSPENDED AT 18:49

	THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE RESUMED AT 18:49

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I will ask the Deputy Chair of Committees to make a report.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The Committee of Supply has met, Mr Speaker. We have not concluded our business.  We wish to sit again on the next sitting day of this House.



THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Deputy Chair.  That concludes the business of today.  Due to matters of personal interest to the hon members, we are forced to adjourn today's sitting.  The House adjourns until tomorrow at 10:30.  The House stands adjourned.

	HOUSE ADJOURNED AT 18:50 UNTIL
	10:30 ON TUESDAY, 26 MAY 1998

		DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS OF
	KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE

	FIFTH SESSION
	SECOND SITTING - TENTH SITTING DAY
	TUESDAY, 26 MAY 1998

THE HOUSE MET AT 10:36 IN THE LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER, PIETERMARITZBURG.  THE SPEAKER TOOK THE CHAIR AND READ THE PRAYER.

THE SPEAKER:  

2.	OBITUARIES AND OTHER CEREMONIAL MATTERS

3.	ADMINISTRATION OF OATHS OR AFFIRMATION

4.	ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE SPEAKER

I have no announcements to make.

5.	ANNOUNCEMENTS AND/OR REPORT BY THE PREMIER

The hon the Premier.

THE PREMIER:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I would like to report to the House that we held a special Cabinet meeting yesterday with the Provincial Commissioner and some of his top brass.  He outlined to us the plans and the programmes that they have in action, both in a pro-active manner as well as programmes that deal with the reaction to the taxi violence.  We were satisfied as a Cabinet that the Provincial Commissioner and the leadership of the SAPS in this Province have a plan that has no reason to fail.  Of course it will need the co-operation from members of the taxi industry itself, from Government and from the community, and that is our task.  Not to berate the Provincial Commissioner, and humiliate him in front of all the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE PREMIER:  But to co-operate with him and implement the plans that are on the table.  Thank you.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you, Premier.

6.	TABLING OF REPORTS AND/OR PAPERS

7.	NOTICES OF BILLS OR MOTIONS 

THE SPEAKER:  Mrs Cronje perhaps, and then you.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I hereby give notice that I shall move the following motion in this hon House:

	NOTING that today, 50 years ago, the National Party took power as an unrepresentative, undemocratic and illegitimate regime;

	FURTHER NOTING that thereafter they embarked on the draconian policy of ~Apartheid~ which caused untold suffering to the majority of South Africans on the basis of race and skin colour;

	and that ~Apartheid~ was declared by the world to be a crime against humanity.

	This House therefore Resolves:

	1.	that the National Party should apologise to the nation and to the world for the crimes committed by them against their fellow South Africans in pursuance of their evil policies; and

	2.	that the National Party should disband forthwith to show their remorse to all the world.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  I have a second motion.

THE SPEAKER:  Oh yes, carry on.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I hereby give notice that I shall move the following motion in this hon House:
	Noting:

	that the serious pollution of the Klip River in the Ladysmith area and the damage and loss caused by this pollution;

	this House calls on the persons and industries responsible:

	1.	to cease all activities causing pollution of our environment forthwith;

	2.	to clean up the river and surrounding areas; and

	3.	to compensate all those who suffered damage and loss to the full extent of such damage and loss.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mr Ngidi.

MR N V E NGIDI: (Whip):  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I give notice that I will move on the next sitting day as follows:

	That this House noting:

	1.	that rural development needs our urgent attention;

	2.	the bulk of our people live in rural areas and those who do not have connection with rural areas;  and

	3.	that unless we develop a comprehensive rural economic development strategy our Province will not experience integrated development.

	Therefore resolves:

	1.	that this House instructs the following Portfolio Committee:

		(a)	Local Government;
		(b)	Traditional Affairs;
		(c)	Economic Affairs and Agriculture
			to jointly develop a basic document for rural economic development.

	2.	That the Local Government further pursues a programme for a model for rural Local Government which shall be suited for economic development and turn rural areas into economical development nodes.

	3.	That this House takes a resolution to make resources available to achieve the abovementioned.

Thank you.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Ngidi.  Yes, Mr Rehman.

MR M F REHMAN:  Thank you.  Mr Speaker.  I would like to move on the next sitting day of Parliament:

	That in KwaZulu-Natal there 1 855 schools without water on site especially in the rural areas.

	Therefore calls upon the hon Minister of Water Affairs Professor Kader Asmal to take urgent steps to rectify this situation.

Thank you.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you, Mr Rehman.  Yes, Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.  I hereby give notice that I shall move tomorrow in this hon House as follows:

	That this House notes with satisfaction that subsistence fishing along the South African Coast is to be promoted in terms of the Marine Resource Bill and therefore calls upon the Government to review the ban on the catching of shad along the coast of KwaZulu-Natal bringing relief to an estimated 165 000 subsistence fishermen.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Yes, Mr Bhamjee.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Mr Speaker, I wish to give notice to this House that at its next sitting, I will move:

	Noting:

	that in the ward 7 by-election the National Party is calling for the death of killers and murderers and rapists.

	Believing:

	that Dr Hoosen Haffajee of Pietermaritzburg was murdered by the National Party led security forces.

	Calls on the National Party to make a full disclosure of all that it knows of the death of the son of Pietermaritzburg, Dr Hoosen Haffajee and all that it knows of all who were killed to sustain ~Apartheid~'s crime against humanity.

Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Yes, Mr Waugh.

MR J N C WAUGH:  Mr Speaker, I give notice that at the next sitting day of this House I will move that:

	Taking note of:

	1.	At a meeting at Grey's Hospital on Monday, 11 May 1998, Dr Zweli Mkhize, ANC MEC for Health in KwaZulu-Natal announced plans to downgrade the facilities at Northdale Hospital.

	2.	Downgrading of the facility would mean:

		(a)	Lack of specialised surgery and treatment.
		(b)	That local patients and visitors would have to travel long distances to either Grey's or Edendale Hospitals for such treatment.

	3.	The Minister at a later stage said that at Northdale Hospital no downgrading would take place.

	This House now:

	(a)	Calls on the Minister to make up his mind in this matter as on two different occasions he had two different points of view.
	(b)	Whatever his point of view should be, no changes should be made as this is an important facility for the community.
	(c)	He should ask the National Government for the rightful funding of our Province as this would assist in delivering services on the same level as in the past.

I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, on a point of order.

THE SPEAKER:  Yes.

MR M A TARR: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, I have been listening for the last week or more to the motions that are moved in this House.  Mr Speaker, it is my view that individuals in this House are abusing notices of motion to make political speeches.  I really think it impinges upon the dignity of this House to allow notices of motion in the nature of some we have heard here today to continually be made, where people are quite clearly using that, or abusing that, to promote their own political agendas.

I would request, Mr Speaker, that this whole matter should be urgently referred to the Rules Committee so we can get a clear definition of what a motion is, and stop members abusing their privilege to move a motion in this House.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you very much, Mr Chief Whip.  Thanks very much.  I will give this chance to Mr Rajbansi, then to Mr Roger Burrows.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Speaker, I would suggest that this question be placed on the agenda of the Parliamentary Board, not the Rules Committee.  The Rules Committee now is a stifling Committee.

THE SPEAKER:  That will be attended to.  I will make a decision one way or the other.  Mr Burrows, before Mr Meer.

MR R M BURROWS:  Mr Speaker, I must, in reaction to the hon the Chief Whip of the ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party, indicate that Parliament is a seat of 85 politicians.  It is not a place in which sensitivity should be too widely explored.  Quite frankly, it is a robust place, and as they say, politics is not for sissies in this country.  That is not to suggest that the hon the Chief Whip is a sissy.  I would not dare to allege such a thing.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE SPEAKER:  Order! Order please!

MR R M BURROWS:  However, Mr Speaker, let us make it quite clear that in Legislatures around the world, including the one in Cape Town, motions such as we have heard today are regularly heard, including from members of the ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mr Meer, please.  Mr Meer, and then the Whip of the ANC.

MR I C MEER:  Mr Speaker, I want the Chief Whip of the IFP to reconsider what he has said.  He has pleaded with this House to restrict freedom of speech, which is an essence of democracy.  The comments that he has made are completely in violation with the very democracy for which we have striven and worked for.  We have in the past referred this matter to a Committee, as you will remember.  They have not put any restrictions on motions and until such restrictions are brought about by any Committee, and adopted by this House, the remarks of the Chief IFP Whip are inconsistent with the very purpose for which this House has been established.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  

THE PREMIER:  Mr Speaker?

THE SPEAKER:  First the Premier.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  No, on a point of order.  Thank you.

THE SPEAKER:  First the Premier.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker ...

THE SPEAKER:  First the Premier.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Oh I am sorry, I did not see the Premier.

THE PREMIER:  I stand to support the Chief Whip of the ~Inkatha~ Freedom Party.  The motivation of a motion should be as brief as possible, stating the substance that needs to be debated.  There is no need therefore to start a debate as you table the motion.  That must be done during the substantive part of the debate on the following day.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mrs Cronje please.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Mr Speaker, I was under the impression that you said you would see me after you saw the hon Mr Meer.  Be that as it may, I totally disagree with the Chief Whip of the IFP.  I am amazed by the fact that a new kind of squeamishness has crept into this House, that we cannot talk politics in this House.  The hon Chief Whip says that we are tabling motions to further our own political agendas.  Of course that is what we are doing.  That is what we are here for.  The National Party has also complained over the last week or so that we are bringing politics into the debate.  The logic escapes me.  Let us grow up.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Mr Schutte please.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Mr Speaker, I would like to stand also in support of the hon Chief Whip of the IFP, and of the Premier.  Mr Speaker, this is the place for debate.  Debate allows for statements and contrary statements.  These senseless motions which is of a political flavour without that being put to debate is really not conducive to what we want to promote in this House.  For that reason, Mr Speaker, I believe that there should be clarity as far as these aspects are concerned.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Point of order, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  I will give Mrs Gasa the first chance before Mr Bhamjee.

MRS F X GASA:  Can I correct something, Mr Speaker.  I agree with my hon colleagues, that politics is what we all are here for.  Many speakers from the different political parties are actually saying let us not put politics into those disciplines where politics is not needed.  That is where the IFP wants to draw the line.  The IFP is saying that when we talk education, when we talk housing, there are certain aspects of our debates that we do not want to politicise.  There should not be any blanket statement that says the IFP is stifling debate.  Therefore I support what the Chief Whip of the IFP is saying.  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Last one, Mr Naicker.  I must say we cannot carry on at the present rate.  This is not a subject for debate.  My submission is that in the Executive Board all parties are equally and properly represented.  May I suggest to the House that this discussion should be left to the Executive Board to make a decision on this matter.  We cannot make a decision at the present rate.

Mr Hamilton will say something.  Mr Hamilton will be the last person to speak on this issue.  Please, Mr Bhamjee, carry on.

MR A RAJBANSI:  On a point of order, Mr Speaker.  On a point of order.  You have given a ruling on the matter.  That is final.  It goes to the Parliamentary Executive Board.

THE SPEAKER:  That is true.  I have given a ruling that this matter will be debated properly before the Executive Board where all the parties are represented.  But Mr Bhamjee and Mr Hamilton had both stood up on a point of order.  I therefore grant them permission notwithstanding my order.  These last two, as I said, are the last two who may say something on this issue.  Mr Bhamjee please.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Mr hon Speaker, thank you for recognising that I am Yousuf Bhamjee.  [LAUGHTER]  In fact Yousuf means the good looking chap in the transformation.  [LAUGHTER]  Mr Speaker, I stood on a point of order, and we must be very serious about it.  If the hon member of the National Party is saying that we must not continuously be reminded about ~Apartheid~'s past, then we are saying to our young people that ~Apartheid~ must be brought back to kill our people.

THE SPEAKER:  May I request the hon member...

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  So in that context I am saying, Mr Speaker ...

THE SPEAKER:  May I request the hon member ...

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  ....that Dr Hoosen Haffajee was killed by the National Party security forces ...

THE SPEAKER:  May I request that hon member to hold his horses.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  ...and the world must be reminded about him.

THE SPEAKER:  May I request the hon member to respect my rulings.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  And may I say too, Mr Bhamjee, that that is not the way to do things.  If I speak according to the Rules, you take your seat.  We do not also speak at the same time and disrespect the Chair.  I hope this is noted.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Otherwise I give a yellow card.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR A J HAMILTON:  Thank you, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER:  Mr Hamilton.

MR A J HAMILTON:  Mr Speaker, I would just like to remind the Chief Whip of the ANC that it was she that was squeamish yesterday when Mr Powell was attacking Minister Ndebele.  But to the point of our Chief Whip's comment, I would just like to suggest, Mr Speaker, that what we have been seeing here is not free political debate, it has been electioneering and it cheapens the House.  What is more, Mr Speaker, it does not fill the public ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE SPEAKER:  Order please!  Thank you.  Thank you.  That ends the matter.  As I say, I have given a ruling.  It will go to the Executive Board where all parties are represented and you will argue it to your satisfaction.  Thank you so much for that.  Any further motions?  None.  We therefore continue with No 8, which is the orders of the day.  This House will resolve into the Committee of Supply.  It is now my pleasure to leave the chair.

THE HOUSE RESOLVED INTO A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE
MRS F X GASA THE CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES TAKES THE CHAIR

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon members, we will now resume as the Committee.  I promised yesterday that I would look into the matter which arose.  I am quite happy that I have Dr Mkhize's comments.  The hon Mr Powell has assured me that in raising the issue of a meeting called by the Minister of Transport, Mr Ndebele, his intention was to highlight the requirements of good governance and the issue of line function responsibilities of the Minister being respected.  He accepts that the information provided by him to this House is substantially correct.  His contribution was intended to positively contribute to better response to the scourge of taxi violence.  The hon Minister was able to clarify to the House, because he felt he was not properly put across.  The hon Minister Dr Mkhize also put his case and it is our wish, when I talked also to the Premier, that this matter would be put to rest.  Therefore we continue with the business of the convert Committee of Supply.

MR J S NDEBELE: (Minister of Transport):  Madam Chair, may I put on record that there are two aspects that seriously disturbed me yesterday.  One was the matter that you have just referred to where I was acting in my official capacity.  Having cleared with the Minister concerned that we are jointly responsible for ensuring that this violence ends we therefore co-ordinate with each other's departments accordingly.  I wrote a letter and informed all concerned that I was bringing together this co-ordinating team.  The reason for this was that there were now these new incidents of violence.  What is disturbing to me is how does a letter that was sent to officials end up on the hon member Mr Powell's desk.  That disturbs me very seriously.

Number two, yesterday we attended a lunchtime meeting, chaired by the Premier and the Commissioner and the whole Cabinet was present.  When we left the Cabinet all went to look for food, which members had seen fit to finish before we came.  While we were there not one of the members of the Cabinet had an opportunity, I can assure you, had an opportunity to talk to the members of the National Party.  But Mr Waugh was able to reveal what had been said at Cabinet.  The question arises, which of the officers of the police went straight to the National Party to tell them that the Premier had said such and such in confidence in the Commissioner.

Those two things disturbed me very, very seriously.  How did the matters I communicated with officials end up with Mr Powell?  How did the matters that we as Cabinet communicated with each other go straight to the National Party?

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I hope that you will afford me the opportunity of replying to what the hon Minister has said ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can I ask the hon member to take his seat.  I really do think that this matter, it would appear, still needs to be investigated further.  I do not think that we can take the time allocated to the vote of Local Government to debate this matter.  I must say, as a politician, perhaps not seasoned, that leakages do occur in departments one way or the other.  So for us to look into leakages, I feel very sorry for the hon Minister when he puts this through.

What I am trying to say here is we need to investigate this matter further because Minister Ndebele put his case yesterday, Minister Mkhize put his case and the way Mr Powell has explained his case here suffices.  If the House remembers, yesterday the Minister, the hon ~Inkosi~ Ngubane clarified this issue and we all heard him.  So I thought that we had put the whole case to rest.  But now it would appear that there is more than what meets the eye.  

Therefore I am making a ruling, no more discussions on this issue.  We will go ahead with vote 8 on Local Government while I investigate this matter further.  I was doing what I promised the House.  I did promise the House yesterday, and I had a moral obligation to come back to the House.  The House must see that I have done something about it.  I now feel that we have got to investigate this matter further.  It is for that reason that I will ask you, hon member, to please assist me to run this session.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I rise on a point of order.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I now call for order, because the hon Minister for Local Government is going to introduce his vote.

MR P POWELL:  Madam, I rise on a point of order and ask you to recognise me.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Point of order?

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I believe that the Minister of Transport has made a serious allegation against me, and in terms of the Rules of this House, I would request the right to my point in perspective.

MRS C M CRONJE: (Chief Whip):  Point of order, Madam Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I always request you, the members, to assist me.  For me to take any informed decision, once you start, heckling, which is a proper parliamentary process, but I cannot take an orderly and informed decision if members heckle at a time when they should not heckle.  Before I give the Chief Whip of the ANC a chance I would like to hear what the member was saying, because I did not hear what his point of order was.  Mr Powell, can you please continue with your point of order.

MR P POWELL:  Madam Chair, I think that in terms of the Rules of this House, if the Minister was afforded the opportunity to make a serious allegation against a member, then it is only fair that that member has the right to respond.  Because it would appear to me that the Rules of this House were suspended to allow the Minister to make this point, and in the spirit of that suspension, or the decision to suspend it, I would request that you afford me the same courtesy.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon Mr Powell, I have asked for ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!  The hon Mr Powell has given me his assurance and I have read the assurance.  As far as I was concerned, I thought that he was explaining that he was not being personal about this issue, but he wanted to highlight certain issues.  So I thought by reading, after discussion, I thought that is what he would like.  But as I am saying, I feel I would ask the House to give me a chance to continue with the business of the Committee.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Then we will look into this issue, and as I promised yesterday, I did come back with what I promised.  I will also come back with it again later this afternoon, or tomorrow to inform you how far we have progressed with this issue.  We have got to look into this issue.

ADV D P A SCHUTTE:  Madam Chair, on a point of order.  If the suggestion is that this House should appoint you as an investigating officer, this party would not go ahead with that.  We believe that you should be the Chairman of this Committee, and you should only be the Chairperson of this Committee, and that is it.  Thank you.

AN HON MEMBER:  On a point of order, Madam Chair.  I think that the ANC on this side is supporting you that you should continue with the business of the day without any hinderance.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  It was not a point of order.  I have ruled, and therefore, according to my ruling, we continue.  We now call on the hon Minister, Minister P M Miller.

KWAZULU-NATAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1998.

VOTE 8 : DEPARTMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  I was beginning to wonder whether I would get a chance to speak today.  [LAUGHTER]

INTRODUCTION

Madam Chair, Mr Premier, colleagues in the Executive, members of this hon House.  It gives me great pleasure to present the budget for vote 8, the Department of Local Government and Housing.  As you will see, as today's proceedings unfold, that my colleague the hon Minister Singh and I will be demonstrating to this House an ideal example of co-operative governance, because we are both MECs responsible for part of the activities of the Department of Local Government and Housing, and in fact are responsible together for vote 8 as a whole.

However, I will be tabling vote 8 as it is one vote, as a whole for approval, which I do.  This will simplify matters, and of course hon members will know that a proportion of funds in vote 8 ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Excuse me, hon Minister.  Will the members on the gallery and members of the House, please remember that cell phones are not tolerated in this House.  Thank you.  You can carry on, sir.  Sorry, for disturbing you.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I will start again.  I said, hon members will know that a proportion of funds in vote 8 which is dedicated exclusively to housing is relatively small, but that is because of course, the bulk of housing funds do not appear on our provincial budget.

I am sure that it is expected of me by hon members, Madam Chair, to say something controversial in order to liven up this session a little bit.  So, I promise that I will not let the members of the House down.  I want to state quite categorically that I believe that this is probably the last year that we will be able to hold a meaningful debate on Local Government in this Parliament.

This is because, Madam Chair, over the last year the National Government have proceeded apace with its plans to undermine the Provincial Government's competencies pertaining to Local Government.  The main mechanism it has used to do this has been the Local Government White Paper process, now in its final stages, and which will express itself in a variety of legislative measures in the near future.

THE WHITE PAPER PROCESS

The National Ministry and the Department of Constitutional Affairs have made loud and persistent claims about the transparent and widely participative consulting process followed by the authors of the White Paper.  Madam Chair, nothing could be further from the truth.  The White Paper was largely pre-written by university academics.  Nothing suggested by the Province or by organised Local Government in KwaZulu-Natal was included up to and including the final draft.  The entire consultative process, including the time-consuming and costly provincial conferences, were nothing but a charade to give the process legitimacy.  Only in the final weeks, when faced with strong opposition, including, I might add, ANC members of MINMEC, were some provincial concerns taken on board.

Provincial Powers

The section on provincial powers in the White Paper was in fact extensively rewritten in an effort to disguise in convoluted verbiage the irrefutable fact that it is clearly ANC policy to limit and circumscribe the role that provinces can play in administering, controlling, and legislating for municipalities.  Provincial Legislatures and Executives will have no independent discretion or power to manage Local Government.

For example, it is said that provinces "establish" municipalities, but, Madam Chair, the most fundamental task needed to "establish" a municipality is to demarcate its boundary, and this task is reserved for National Government through the National Demarcation Board.  From next year, all funding for Local Government will go direct from national to local.  All electoral procedures are determined nationally.  Provinces are said to be able to "intervene" if a municipality is in trouble, but this is undefined and vague and subject to severe limitations.  Provinces' functions relating to Local Government are clouded and disguised in vague, undefined terms such as "co-ordinate" and "support", (while national controls the money), "monitor", (while national approves municipal budgets), and "capacitate", (while national controls and legislates for training).  No amount of verbal obfuscation, Madam Chair, can disguise the factual situation: provinces are for all practical purposes written out of the equation, and I must concede that in many instances this is exactly what the authors of the Constitution intended anyway.

The White Paper clearly spells it out: national uniformity is of paramount importance.  There is no room for provincially determined variations or local options; there is no space for independent provincial initiatives in regard to policy concerning Local Government.  In short, National Government legislates and provincial administrations implement as per instructions.

Co-operative Governance

A few comments on co-operative governance, Madam Chair.  The ill-disguised contempt in which the authors of the White Paper hold Provincial Government, makes the section on co-operative Government in the White Paper, and for that matter in the Constitution itself, seem hollow and meaningless, to say the least.

The White Paper is high on rhetoric but low on substance on this vague and ill defined issue.  Clearly levels or spheres of Government must co-operate in the interests of all, but co-operation normally presupposes separate spheres of Government willingly working together for the common good.  Unfortunately, the term "co-operative government" is more often than not the camouflage the Central Government uses for imposing its will on, particularly, Provincial Government: co-operative government in effect becomes co-opted government.  The White Paper is an outstanding example of the use of the notion of co-operative government to actually subjugate and control provinces, especially those that are not governed by an ANC majority.

Recently, during the visit of the IEC to the Province, I had occasion once again to spell out the difference between co-operative government and co-opted government.  It is indeed ironic that the more National Government thinks that it alone is capable of managing and organising things like elections, the more it realises, as the realities sink in, that it actually needs the help of the provinces.

Madam Chair, hon members, it is a matter of public record that my reservations and objections to the Local Government White Paper have not been confined only to the way in which it effectively sells out provincial government.  On two other key issues the White Paper proposals are woefully flawed, despite the consistent and persistent attempts by my Ministry, and organised Local Government in this Province to introduce some logic into the debate.

The Mega-City concept for Metros

I will deal for a moment with the mega-city concept for metros.  The section on metropolitan structures of Local Government was also extensively rewritten in the final White Paper.  It purports to allow for either a single city metro with ward committees, or a metro with substructures.  The latter is, however, so defined as to be nothing but a single city metro in drag.  Both versions of metro Government are defined as A-category municipalities, which the Constitution defines as, "a municipality that has exclusive municipal executive and legislative authority in its area".  Metropolitan substructures will not qualify as a municipality, will have no original powers, and will not have an elected council.  At best, they can be described as sub-committees of the metropolitan council.  

Plainly stated, Madam Chair, the choice Local Government is being given is a single city versus a single city.  The only difference is that in the one model councillors liaise with their constituents via a single councillor ward committee, and in the other councillors liaise via a multi-councillor sub-committee of the metropolitan council organised on a continuous geographical ward basis.  In the latter case, provision is also made for certain delegated powers for these subcommittees in their own areas.

The supreme irony is that the hon Dr Sutcliffe and company are in fact re-establishing the local affairs committees they so successfully destroyed in the ~Apartheid~ era.

AN HON MEMBER:  Skande.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  No matter how the authors of the White Paper try to disguise the facts and mislead the public, the Greater City of Durban will not be given the option of a two-tier system consisting of a metropolitan authority and metropolitan substructures.  I submit that it is fraudulent to say that it is so.  This fraud is compounded by the fact that in areas outside the metro, and particularly in deep rural areas, the two-tier system is being enforced as the only option available.

The ANC's political agenda is clear for all to see.  Ruthlessly enforce a single city metropolis.  To blazes with democracy.  The ANC rules!  However, in the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC does not rule.  Therefore it ruthlessly enforces the two-tier system, so that pockets of ANC support in the form of primary municipalities can white-ant and undermine the regional councils.

Traditional Leadership and Traditional Communities in Local Government

May I deal briefly, Madam Chair, with traditional leadership and traditional communities in Local Government.

The White Paper proposals on the role of Traditional Leaders in Local Government structures of the future are notable more for what they do not say than for what they say.  Save for the fact that the White Paper makes it clear that there will be elected Government in all areas falling under Traditional Leaders, it is vague and inconclusive about the precise role Traditional Leaders will play and the precise function they will fulfil vis-a-vis municipalities.  What has to be avoided at all costs is a clash between traditional and elected structures, as such a clash could make traditional areas ungovernable.

The White Paper is clearly deficient in this regard.  My party has warned time and again that unless the status and role of Traditional Leadership is properly addressed in Local Government legislation, Local Government will fail and become a cause of conflict as opposed to a means to reconciliation and reconstruction.  I was pleased therefore that the Minister of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development himself openly acknowledged at the launch of the White Paper in KwaZulu-Natal in March, that the issue of Traditional Leaders in Local Government needed much more consultation and research.  I can only hope that our proposals in this regard will be treated more seriously than our input in the other Local Government issues I have mentioned.

Madam Chair, if it really is the intention of National Government to sabotage the important part played by Provincial Government in regulating Local Government, to the point that debates in this Legislature on Local Government could become largely meaningless, I do not think they will succeed in the long term.  The reality is that National Government simply does not have the capacity, or the understanding of local conditions, to supplant the Provincial Government's role in nurturing and developing Local Government in this Province.  This much will become clear when I briefly highlight some of the Department's achievements in the fields of Local Government and development planning over the past year.

I am not going to go into detail on the Department's achievements and successes during the year under review.  In this regard, I refer hon members to the Annual Report of the Department which I tabled timeously last week, to enable all hon members to acquaint themselves with the content of that report.  That report provides a detailed overview of the activities of the Department in the 1997/1998 financial year.  There are, however, a number of issues which I must bring to the attention of the House.

REGIONAL COUNCILS

Firstly, on regional councils, Madam Chair.  The past year has been a very significant one.  Regional councils have been in existence for nearly two years, much of which time has been spent finding their feet and sorting out administrative issues, such as staff structures, office accommodation and the like.  Regional councils are now in a position to start taking on a whole range of new responsibilities and functions.

In recent months, I announced a number of important policy decisions aimed at equipping regional councils to assume their rightful role as fully fledged rural Local Governments.  In November last year I announced that regional councils will henceforth receive the authority to exercise all the primary Local Government functions and powers of a municipality in the remaining areas falling under their jurisdiction.  In addition to these primary Local Government functions and the inherited functions of the erstwhile JSB's, regional councils can now apply for additional Schedule 2 functions of the LGTA to be allocated to them.  In the case of disaster management, the assignment of this function has already been finalised.

With regard to the social empowerment function which my Department has been performing up until now, we are far advanced with the preparation of a Social Empowerment Bill, which will give statutory responsibility for the execution of certain social empowerment functions to regional councils.  Among these functions will be the establishment and control of community development committees at local level, whose functions will be to identify and prioritise the development needs of communities.

To assist regional councils to perform these new social empowerment functions, it is the intention to transfer the field staff in the social empowerment components of the Department to regional councils.  The timing and details of this transfer will depend on negotiations with the individual regional councils, and the passing of national legislation which is still being awaited to make possible the transfer process.

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough for regional councils in their present form occurred on 24 March this year, and the hon members across the floor will not thank me for reminding them, when the Constitutional Court issued a unanimous judgment dismissing an appeal by the ANC challenging the validity of the provincial enactment which established the councils, and which provided for ex officio membership of Traditional Leaders on these councils.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Until April 1999.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Oh ja.  Do not try and escape the fact that you got a good hiding.  [LAUGHTER]

DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICES BOARD AND TOWNSHIPS BOARD

In parallel with the steady evolution of regional councils, it has also been necessary to restructure the two statutory bodies responsible for administering certain settlements and townships in rural areas, namely the Development and Services Board and the Townships Board.  In terms of Proclamation No 20 of 1997, the terms of office of the members of both boards were terminated, and a three person joint management body was appointed to manage and control the affairs of both boards with effect from 31 December 1997.

The primary task of the joint management body will be to oversee the transformation of the former boards into a development agency capable of acting in tandem with, and in support of, regional councils in nurturing dense rural settlements and villages towards achieving local authority status.

PROJECT VIABILITY

Turning now, Madam Chair, to municipal Local Government matters, it will not surprise hon members when I say that municipalities throughout the Province are continuing to experience serious financial problems.  Nevertheless, it is with some pride that I can say that KwaZulu-Natal is one of the provinces where all municipalities have thus far managed to survive financially, despite the severe budgetary constraints.

Last year I informed members about Project Viability, which is aimed at identifying cash flow problems in municipalities and taking timeous remedial action.  In terms of Project Viability and the National Intervention Programme managed by the Department of Constitutional Development, management audits are being conducted by the Provincial Department in collaboration with financial consultants.  21 audits were concluded during the 1997/1998 financial year.

These audits identified the following as major contributing causes of municipal financial problems:

*	a continuing culture of non-payment for municipal services in some areas
*	unemployment
*	ineffective credit control
*	poor financial management
*	defective organisational and staff establishments
*	unacceptable service levels
*	inadequate tariff structures
*	ineffective orientation and training

Virtually all these factors, Madam Chair, are within the powers of municipalities to take remedial action.  Accordingly, the Department has been issuing instructions to the affected municipalities to take urgent steps to address the problems identified during the management audits.

COUNCILLOR ALLOWANCES

It is also common cause, Madam Chair, that one of the major causes of the financial stress being experienced by municipalities countrywide is the disproportionately high percentages of municipal income being spent on salaries and allowances, coupled with the fact that many councils are simply too large in terms of numbers of councillors.  It is for this reason that I could not allow the recommendations on councillor allowances approved by MINMEC in July last year to be implemented unamended in KwaZulu-Natal.  The recommendations of the national technical task team which drew up the recommendations had simply not been tested on the ground and would have resulted in the financial collapse of many municipalities in the Province if they had been implemented.

Calculations done by my Department showed that, if the MINMEC recommendations had been implemented, some of the smaller councillors would have had to spend more than their total rates income on councillor allowances.  Average across the board increases ranged from 201% for the smaller councils, who could least afford the increases, to just 1% for the larger councils and metropolitan substructures.

Fortunately, as Provincial Minister responsible for Local Government in the Province, I was given discretionary powers to determine the maximum allowances payable in the Province.  Accordingly, after a careful study of each category of municipality on its own merits, and with the approval of the Portfolio Committee for Local Government and the Provincial Cabinet, I issued a determination on the maximum allowances payable to councillors with retrospective effect to 1 July 1997.  These allowances will remain effective until a date still to be determined.

Madam Chair, I want to here publicly acknowledge the magnificent co-operation received from the Portfolio Committee, and I was extremely delighted that on this issue we had a multiparty consensus.  We stood by each other, and we worked very well together.  It is my hope of course that on all matters financial we will work in that way.

PLANNING LEGISLATION AND STRATEGIES

I turn now to planning legislation and strategies.  I wish to refer to the progress being made with planning legislation, and the significant achievements of the Land, Planning and Survey Chief Directorate during the year under review.  

The Chief Directorate has made significant progress over the past financial year in the transformation of the development planning process in this Province.  Of particular significance has been the progress made with the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Bill, the implementation of the Development Facilitation Act, the Policy and White Paper for Integrated Rural Development, and the Provincial Spatial and Development Framework.

KWAZULU-NATAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT BILL

The Department, through the Town and Regional Planning Commission, has made major strides in finalising the drafting of unitary planning and development legislation for the Province.  Hon members will be aware that it is the intention to table the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Bill towards the end of this session, hopefully next week, at which stage I will report in more detail on aspects such as the purpose and advantages of the proposed legislation.

DEVELOPMENT FACILITATION ACT

In regard to the Development Facilitation Act.  In November 1996, the Provincial Cabinet assigned the administration of the Development Facilitation Act, 1995 to the Department.  Since this decision, the Department has managed an intensive process to establish the Development and Planning Commission, the Development Tribunal and the Development Appeals Tribunal; to train provincial and municipal staff, and to prepare implementation manuals.

The first step in the implementation was the appointment of the Town and Regional Planning Commission as the interim Development and Planning Commission.  The final appointment of this Commission will, however, be in terms of the KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Act, should we succeed in passing it through this House next week.

POLICY AND WHITE PAPER FOR INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Now I could not help thinking this morning when the debate about motions was taking place, Madam Chair, how disappointing it is when you realise that there are people that have not read this report, nor have they been paying attention to all the invitations to attend the workshops, and all the other things on an integrated rural development strategy.  This was indicated to me by the hon member Nhlanhla Ngidi's motion this morning.

It is therefore very interesting for him specifically to learn that in terms of Cabinet Resolution No 93 of 6 March 1996 the Department was tasked to convene an Interdepartmental Task Team to prepare a policy and a White Paper for integrated rural development in the Province.

Work on the policy was undertaken in three phases.  During the first phase, a draft position, based on interviews and investigations was developed.  In the second phase, this position was workshopped, discussed and adapted in consultation with a variety of interested parties.  These included Government departments, regional councils, tribal authorities, rural communities, NGOs, private sector organisations, and all the members of this hon chamber.  These consultations culminated in a provincial workshop held on 18 August 1997, after which the Draft White Paper was developed as a third phase.  The draft policy and White Paper, as approved by Cabinet for advertising, will be published for public comment prior to it being finalised and implemented by Cabinet.

I just want to make sure that everybody understands that.  The report and the speech were both prepared at a time when we thought we could say, has now been published as at today's delivery date.  In fact the Cabinet Committee will be considering the Draft White Paper next Wednesday morning, 3 June, and thereafter only will it be ready for publication.

PROVINCIAL SPATIAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK

I turn now to the Provincial Spatial Growth and Development Framework.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Not written by academics I hope.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  No, they were tempered a little bit.  [LAUGHTER]  The KwaZulu-Natal Growth and Development Strategy, and in particular programme six thereof as approved by the Provincial Cabinet by Resolution 236 of 3 July 1996, tasked the Department with the formulation of a Provincial Spatial Growth and Development Framework.

The object of this framework is to develop strategies at provincial level to:

*	formulate policy in regard to overall spatial distribution of development.
*	to respond to the spatial implications and synergies from the development strategy and other policies, and to ensure co-ordination.
*	to provide a framework which could be used as a mechanism to align national and provincial departmental budgets and influence private sector investment.
*	to set frameworks for planning at provincial, regional, sub-regional and local level.
*	to co-ordinate, facilitate and support the development of such plans.

This development framework was finalised and adopted by Cabinet Resolution 275 of 25 June 1997.  The Cabinet then referred the framework to the Management Executive Committee or MEXCO to ensure that the provincial departments' budget are allocated in accordance with this framework, as part of MEXCO's responsibility for the implementation of the Development Strategy.  The Department is now in the process of reviewing and maintaining the Provincial Spatial Growth and Development Framework and ensuring its implementation through the preparation of regional and local development plans.

DEVELOPMENT PLANS

Regional Development Plans

With reference then to development plans.  During 1996, the Department initiated a process and convened a widely representative steering committee for the preparation of regional planning guidelines for the seven regional councils.  Specific emphasis was placed on the importance of having these plans linked to a budgetary process and ensuring the provision of adequate resources for their implementation.

These guidelines have been completed and the Department is supporting all regional councils, (financially and technically), in the preparation of regional development plans.  These guidelines will eventually be proclaimed as regulations in terms of the Provincial Planning and Development Act.

As part of the Regional Planning Joint Venture, the Department has also assisted the regional councils with their sub-regional demarcation projects, the identification of their future rural administrative centres as part of the Rural Administrative Infrastructure Development Programme, (RAID) and a land suitability analysis which is aimed at identifying the most suitable portions of land for housing development.

Local Development Plans

In regard to local development plans.  The Department has been supporting all municipalities in the preparation of their local development plans, which aim to integrate and merge the planning requirements of the Development Facilitation Act, the Local Government Transition Act, the Land Reform Policies, and the promotion of local economic development into one manageable planning tool.

PERSONNEL MATTERS AND THE ACHIEVING OF REPRESENTIVITY IN THE DEPARTMENT

If I might turn now to personnel matters and the achieving of representivity in the Department.  Before dealing with the budget itself, Madam Chair, I feel obliged to lay to rest a rumour which has assumed the proportions of a perennial myth which simply refuses to die.  This myth would have it that the Department of Local Government and Housing is lagging behind in terms of achieving representivity in its staff establishment.  I am not afraid to disclose that even some staff members within the Department itself have embarked on a poison pen campaign to highlight the supposed lack of progress of the Department with regard to affirmative action.

AN HON MEMBER:  Transformation.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  I want to be quite categorical on this.  The Department of Local Government and Housing, and I am sure my colleague Minister Singh will agree, is committed to achieving representivity in terms of the goals set by the White Paper on transforming the Public Service.

During the period 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1997, 153 entry level posts were filled in the Department.  Of these 80% were black, 20% were white, 55% were male and 45% were female.

During the period 1 January 1996 to 21 April 1998, 141 promotion posts were filled.  Of these 47% were black, 53% were white, 73% were male and 27% were female.

With regard to promotion posts filled at the level of Deputy Director and higher during the last six to nine months, 15 appointments were made.  10 were black, (including coloureds and Indians) 5 were white, 10 were male and 5 were female.

Madam Chair, these statistics are not indicative of a department which is intent on delaying or avoiding affirmative action.  On the contrary they prove that, in terms of appointments and promotions made over the last two years, the Department of Local Government and Housing is well on its way towards achieving the representivity targets set out in the said White Paper.  In fact, at the present time we are ahead in terms of the schedule contained in that White Paper.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  I now, Madam Chair, wish to move onto the main purpose of this debate, namely the tabling of the budget.

1998/1999 BUDGET : DEPARTMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND HOUSING

In presenting the Department's budget for approval of this House, I frankly admit to finding myself in a difficult situation.  Today I wear the hat of Minister responsible for Local Government and Development Planning.  But right behind me is another hat, that of Minister of Finance.  And when I am wearing the Department of Local Government and Housing's hat, I want to state upfront that the Department has not been given sufficient funding this year to perform all its functions to the extent that it would wish.  In saying this, I am in good company as there has not been a single Minister before me who has not alluded to the same problem and for the same reasons.

But here I am obliged to quickly change hats.  Because in my other role I want to say, "This is the budget that you have been given.  Now just get on with it, and make the best of what you have!".  And so, while acknowledging the extremely tight financial situation facing the Department and hence all Local Government bodies in the Province, I have no option but to enthusiastically commit myself and my Department to the pledge taken by all Provincial Cabinet Minister, namely to remain within budget this financial year.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  

BUDGET COUNCIL ALLOCATION

The budget allocation for the Department of Local Government and Housing for the 1998/1999 financial year is R801,314 million.  Compared with last year's allocation, this represents a reduction of R194 million or 24,29%.  The breakdown of the funds allocated for 1998/1999 is as follows:

*	R209 million, which, according to Treasury, will be the total personnel cost for the Department based on figures extrapolated from the November 1997 FMS report.  I would just hasten to add that it has been conceded that that extrapolation was wrong, the figure should in fact have been R271 million;
*	R24,7 million stated as other;
*	R568 million earmarked for transfer payments to municipalities in respect of R293 towns, previously administered by the former KwaZulu Government or the Natal Provincial Administration.

As I have alluded, the interface between PERSAL and FMS did not go through fully in the benchmark month of November 1997, resulting in a lower figure being extrapolated for the Department's annual personnel costs than was actually the case.  This discrepancy can be substantiated by monthly actual expenditure figures on personnel extracted from the FMS system.  A 1998/1999 projection report for personnel reflects that the Department's personnel requirements is actual R271 million, as I have indicated.  The shortfall allocated to this Department, taking into consideration the criteria used by the Budget Council, is therefore R62 million.  This is going to have a major impact on programmes 1 and 2, and will particularly affect the disadvantaged communities in TLCs and regional councils, as less money will be available for operational objectives after personnel costs have been met.

The following schedule reflects a comparison between 1997/1998 and 1998/1999 budgets.  I am not going to read it, Madam Chair, it is available to all members in the written speech which has now been distributed.

[Table inserted by Hansard]

1998/99
R'000
1997/98
R'000

%
PROGRAMME 1
182,058
244,814
(34.47)
PROGRAMME 2
584,731
694,986
(18.86)
PROGRAMME 3
17,525
23,285
(32.87)
PROGRAMME 4
5,000
5,000
0.00
PROGRAMME 5
10,000
18,850
(88.50)
PROGRAMME 6
2,000
9,000
(350.00)
TOTAL
801,314
995,935
(24.29)

DEPARTMENTAL ALLOCATION OF AVAILABLE FUNDS

PROGRAMME 1

I turn now to departmental allocation of available funds.  This programme aims at:

*	policy formulation by the Minister and the Department's management;
*	organising the Department, managing its personnel and financial administration, determining working methods and procedures, exercising control, and rendering general administrative services.

Programme 1 provides an administrative support base for the implementation of the other programmes, sufficient funding is required to attain the following objectives.  The objectives are listed and members can read them for themselves. 

The Objectives:  [Inserted by Hansard]

-	restructure in line with goals and objectives
-	ensure representivity
-	train and re-train staff to render effective and efficient services
-	manage resources
-	set policies and procedures
-	control departmental activities
-	create appropriate work environment
-	render efficient and effective staff functions.

Personnel:  R116 321 000  

Under personnel we make provision for R116 million and some thousands.  This amount is provided according to an FMS projection report taken on 20 January 1998, and will therefore cater for all presently filled positions in the Department, excluding those employees rendering a municipal service and whose services have already been made available to municipalities.  To enable the Department to fulfil its constitutional and other statutory obligations within the allocated amount, the employees whose services have already been made available to municipalities will have to be budgeted for from within the latter's conditional grants.  This will in turn reduce the funds available for rendering services to disadvantaged communities, and will have a far-reaching effect on the financial position of the already struggling local authorities.

Administrative Expenditure:  R15 911 000

Under administrative expenditure we budget R15,9 million.  This expenditure has been cut by 51%.  As these costs are related to inflation, a reduced allocation means that the Department will be required to function with a substantial decrease in basic running costs.  This will definitely impede the Department's ability to attain the Programme 1 objectives, as stated, and a concerted effort by both management and staff will be required to maintain a high morale and an effective and efficient service.

Stores and Livestock:  R5 131 000

Stores and livestock, this has been cut marginally by 7%.  Items budgeted for here are stationery and uniforms etcetera.  The amount budgeted, R5,1 million.

Equipment:  R2 687 000

This has been cut by 78%.  Under current equipment, funds are only available for the renting of equipment and the purchase of tools.  Under capital equipment, no funds are available for purchase of furniture or computer equipment, except for acquisition of computer equipment not yet Year 2000 compliant.

Land and Buildings:  R5 520 000  

Under this item is the rental of Southern Life Plaza, Esplanade Building, and Tolaram House, R5,5 million.

Professional and Special Services:  R34 398 000 

Professional and special services show an increase of 10%.  A management reserve of R10 million has been provided for in this item to allow for those situations which are impossible to predict.  This is intended to reduce the risk of missing cost or schedule objectives.  The Accounting Officer reserves the right to utilise these funds in the best interests of the Department.  Under this particular section we have budgeted R34,39 million.

A major portion of this item is reserved for payment of consultants for the various projects currently underway in the Department, such as the fast tracking of housing.  Funds have also been earmarked to develop the Year 2000 compliance systems for all our departmental computers.

Miscellaneous Expenditure:  R2 090 000

Miscellaneous expenditure - we have got R2,09 million, a decrease of 38% due to the smaller personnel budget.

That deals with Programme 1.  May I just emphasise then, under Programme 1 of course, that my colleague's staff in the Housing branch, from a personnel point of view, are also catered for in terms of that particular programme.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 1:  R182 058 000

PROGRAMME 2

The aim is to promote, co-ordinate, monitor, maintain, and develop Local Government.  The allocation to this programme has been reduced by R110 million, which represents a reduction of 18,86%.  This is due to the fact that the funds allocated by National Government, as the equitable share to Local Government, together with the Local Government transitional grants, no longer appear on the provincial budget, apart from the amount of R568 million which represents the transfer payments to municipalities in respect of former R293 towns.  Save for amounts allocated for the month of April, May and June 1998, the equitable share funds will be paid directly to municipalities in the remainder of 1998/1999.

The funds in this programme will be utilised as follows:

Establish and Maintain Local Government
R563 915 000
Perform the Disaster Management Function
R  3 216 000
Subsidy
R 17 600 000

The Subsidy is essentially to the combined Development and Services Board and Townships Board.  This subsidy has been reduced by 20%.  The Board is presently administering 15 development areas and 22 regulated areas which have not reached the stage where they can become independent municipalities.  This reduction in the subsidy will have a negative effect on the service delivery to the relevant communities.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 2:  R584 731 000

PROGRAMME 3

The aim of this programme is to manage assets and administer land matters, as well as to co-ordinate planning and provide survey services.  Here we have budgeted R2,02 million, and this money will be used for:

Land Matters:  R2,025,000

The following Projects/Initiatives are to be funded from this allocation:

Functioning of and rendering secretarial support to Private Townships Board
R40,000
Research and policy formulation in respect of provincial land matters
R60,000
Ownership rights investigations other than for the opening of Township Registers
R100,000
Continue existing programme to undertake pre-conveyancing to enable the opening of Township Registers in support of upgrading of land tenure rights and access to housing subsidies
R1,825,000

Planning:  R7,000,000

The following Projects/Initiatives are to be funded from this allocation:
Finalisation and implementation of KwaZulu-Natal Planning and Development Act, including training of municipalities
R1 500 000
Finalisation, publishing, and monitoring the implementation of Integrated Rural Development Policy and the White Paper
R350 000
Coastal Zone Management Plan for KwaZulu-Natal
R100 000
Local Agenda 21 - Phase 2
R100 000
Managing and monitoring of the implementation of Provincial Growth and Development Strategy in the Department of Local Government and Housing
R 50 000
Waste Disposal Planning Guidelines for KwaZulu-Natal -  Phase 2
R150 000
Revision of Regional Planning Guidelines
R100 000
Establish the programme to support municipalities in the Province in the preparation of Local Government Plans
R4 650 000





Survey:  R4 000 000

The following Projects/Initiatives are to be funded from this allocation:

Our survey section will take R4 million, of which will be spent:

GIS consulting
R220 000
GIS data acquisition to perform development planning analysis and to support strategic development decisions
R200 000
To complete the survey of Tribal Boundaries
R400 000
Ortho-photographic mapping in support of housing and corridor developments
R800 000
Cadastral and topographical surveys in support of provincial housing delivery programmes
R2 380 000

Grant in Aid : Town Planning Appeals Board/DFA Appeals Tribunal:
R1 500 000

We have a grant in aid for the Town Planning Appeals Board, the DFA Appeals Tribunal, also R1,5 million.  This is a new statutory body which will consider all planning and development appeals, irrespective of legislation under which the original application was lodged.  The Appeal Tribunal will therefore replace the Appeals Board and take on some of the responsibilities previously performed by the Town and Regional Planning Commission and the Minister.  Currently, 30 members have been selected to serve on this tribunal.  Half of the members have been selected from Provincial and Local Government, and the other half from the private sector.  I want to hasten to assure the hon House that all 30 members are not busy at the same time.  They are a pool from which the required number of three to hear an appeal are drawn from time to time. 

Grant in Aid : DFA Development Tribunal:  R1 500 000

We also then have a grant in aid for the DFA Development Tribunal of R1,5 million.  This is also a new body.  There are currently 47 members who have been selected to serve.  Half of the members have been selected from Provincial and Local Government, and the other half from the private sector.  Again I want to assure members that all 47 members do not sit to consider a development application.  The presiding members will chose a panel, usually roundabout five, to consider such matters.  Provision has to be made in Programme 3 for the remuneration of these members.  The R1,5 million which has been allocated for the operation of the Development Tribunal provides for approximately 140 hearings on the assumption that an average of three persons from the private sector will be present at each hearing.  That then concludes Programme 3.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 3:  R17 525 000
 
PROGRAMME 4

Under Programme 4 we have a total of R5 million, and this is:

*	To provide democratic and accountable government for communities.
*	To ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner.
*	To promote social and economic development.
*	To promote a safe and healthy environment.
*	To encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of Local Government.

This is very much a development facilitation type function.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 4:  R5 000 000

PROGRAMME 5

Under Programme 5, this will be dealt with more specifically by my hon colleague, the Minister of Housing, but essentially it is funds to drive the Sakhasonke Joint Venture.  He will expand upon that.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 5:  R10 000 000

PROGRAMME 6

Under Programme 6, provincial motor transport, here we have a cut of 78%.  No departmental vehicles have been budgeted for in this financial year.  In respect of subsidised transport, only vehicles incurring golden mileage will be replaced.

TOTAL: PROGRAMME 6:  R2 000 000

That then, Madam Chair, hon members, is the review of the budget allocation for the Department of Local Government and Housing for the 1998/1999 financial year.

Before going on to formally ask the House to adopt the budget, I do want to deal with a small issue which has become relevant subsequent to the preparation of the documentation for this budget debate.  I am afraid to say, Madam Chair, that fraud and corruption is alive, kicking and thriving in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.  In fact, I want to use a phrase that I once used in a speech which said, "That it is clear to me that fraud and corruption is not considered a crime, it is considered a fringe benefit", is in fact more true now than it was ever before.  During the sitting earlier this year where I made an announcement of the arrest of certain officials in the personnel section of my Department in one of the particular regional offices, and I indicated that drastic action was going to be taken.  I now have in my hand the full report of what that particular action, that we took, has eventually revealed.

I seek the understanding of the hon House that I will be presenting the content of this, firstly, to the Cabinet tomorrow.  I think it has incredible implications for our entire administration and every department.  I want to say that as soon as the Cabinet has considered this, it is my intention then, because I believe in the interests of transparency and openness, to share the content of this with the Legislature, and the various Portfolio Committees.

Let me say, sir ...

AN HON MEMBER:  Madam.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Madam Chair, I am reminded that you are not sir, I am very conscious of that, I do beg your pardon.  If this is a reflection of what is in fact going on widely across our Department, then we have a real problem to deal with.  If I can put my hat on in my capacity as Minister of Finance for a moment, then I want to say that we are going to have to take very, very drastic action.  In essence, what has been revealed here is to go in and take everybody by surprise.  Lock and lock up the files, lock the doors and remove everybody and then in fact investigating what is going on.  Let me just leave you with one titbit.  There is one person who died in 1985.  Between 1985 and 1998 people on his behalf have earned a quarter of a million Rand.  That is just one of the many incidences that is contained in this report.

AN HON MEMBER:  That is where the money goes.

AN HON MEMBER:  No, it is the ghosts again.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  I mentioned that little side issue particularly in support of the Annual Report.  On page 26 it extensively deals with the disciplinary issues within the Department.  I am indeed proud of the management of the Department, at all levels, for the decisive steps they are taking to eliminate this very, very serious situation where funds that should be used in the support of developing disadvantaged communities, are in fact being rapaciously stolen by the very people that should be serving them.

It is therefore my pleasure now, Madam Chair, to formally move the adoption of the budget of the Department of Local Government and Housing, vote 8.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much, Mr Minister.  The next speaker on the list is the hon Dr Sutcliffe for 10 minutes.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Thank you, hon Chair of this Committee.  Firstly, I rise and the first words that I have to say are as Chair of this Portfolio Committee I will then inform the House when I change that particular hat.

But certainly, as Chair of this Committee, we have had an extremely good working relationship with the MEC and with the Department.  It is the one Department, that on a monthly basis, reports to the Committee, through its delegation of responsibilities at a responsibility manager level, is able to account for the use of funds.  It is a Department that has regularly reported to us on matters.  For that we commend this Department for the work that it has done.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  As a Portfolio Committee, we have met fairly regularly.  We have tried to take our responsibilities seriously.  I believe that we have done that through the monitoring of Local Government.  Some Local Governments in this Province, such as Dannhauser, Pongola, Umkamanzi, and a few others, where there have been very serious problems, as a Portfolio Committee we have tried to assist in mediation, recognising that, in terms of the LGTA, the responsibility was vested in the Provincial Government to play a role there.  I will talk about the White Paper and the implications of that a little bit later.  But certainly, we have tried to ensure that we play a role in mediating before talking about intervention and the like.  Our monitoring role has been fairly effective there in trying to assist the Department, but to assist those Local Governments to do the work that they should do.

As a Portfolio Committee, we have tried to look at the issue of Local Government finance in some detail.  Certainly many of the recommendations we have continued to make, particularly around rating, property rates and the like, have begun to find their way even into national documents.  I note a document from the Department of Finance, and it is a pity that the hon Minister did not really focus on it, because it is a document dealing with the equitable share of nationally raised revenue for Local Government.  It is a document that will have enormous implications for the way in which Local Government is financed.

One of those, for example, and this is where the ANC certainly has put its money where its mouth is, is to say that you need to ensure that poor people are entitled to basic levels of services, and to provide those.  Over the next seven years there will be a process of phasing in subsidies to ensure that whether you are in a rural area or urban area you are entitled to a basic level of service.  That needs to come from nationally raised revenue.  So that will be implemented.  But certainly the Finance Committee side of our Portfolio Committee has continued to begin to look at issues like budgets and how those budgets are constructed and the like.

On the legislation front, the Planning and Development Bill will be coming before us this coming week.  It is an enormously complex piece of legislation, but is a piece of legislation that is vital for our Province.  In much of the Province there is still an enormous waste of time on the part of not just the bureaucracies, but the complex legal provisions in order to get development going.  This piece of legislation will facilitate that.  One of the issues that we have raised as a Committee, that has been accepted by the hon MEC, is a deeming clause, that will basically say whether you are in Provincial Government, or in Local Government, if a development application is made and you do not respond to it within a reasonable time period, that development will have deemed to have been approved.  That is a piece of legislation that certainly begins to put the onus on the Government as a service delivery agent.  It is not the Government as the overlord or the warlord acting against communities, but is the Government acting on behalf of communities.  In that sense, that piece of legislation that has been piloted and will be piloted by the MEC, and we will deal with next week, is extremely important.

The Committee as a whole has functioned very well, but I am sure in the months ahead, when we debate how the provincial legislation, the shape that that legislation will take, I am sure there are going to be stark differences between political parties.  I would hope, however, that will not take us away from our responsibilities to make sure that whatever legislation we deal with is ultimately for the benefit of all the people of our Province.  I hope, as Committee Chair, that those discussions and debates that we will have in the next few months are going to be done in the spirit of furthering the interests of our Province as a whole.

Could I then change my hat, and speak as a representative of certainly the most powerful liberation movement in the world, the African National Congress.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  I have not woken up everyone, I see the MEC of Education is still sleeping, but do not worry.  [LAUGHTER]  I want to begin by saying that there is a fundamental difference, probably between all the parties in this House and the ANC, in terms of a very basic principle, "The people shall govern".  The ANC said the people shall govern, and we are going to make sure that they shall govern, whether it is at a local level, a provincial level or a national level.  Stuck in the craw of those who come out of the old order is a belief that Local Government must be told what to do by Provincial Government, or it must be told what to do by the National Government.

AN HON MEMBER:  Central Government tells you.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  That in fact is out.  If you read your Constitution, hon Alexander Hamilton, you would know that that Constitution says a number of things.  Firstly, the three key powers are now actually taken out of the hands of politicians purely, that were before the role of those politicians, and are now vested in independent structures.  The first is elections.  Elections, whether it is at national, provincial or local level, will be dealt with by the IEC.  That used to be a powerful instrument, that Provincial MECs, like the hon MEC Peter Miller could use.  Those were instruments that are now out of his hands, they are now vested in the IEC.

Secondly, at a financing level it was a very useful political thing that you could say, "I will give so much to this Local Government, and not to that".  Now we have an approach that National Government has put forward, in line with the FFC recommendations, that says, "We will fund on the basis of where poor people are".  That should be the primary indicator, not where there is an ANC or an IFP, I do not think there are any DP communities around, or NP communities left, but certainly that it takes it out of the Provincial MEC's hands.  That is a very important principle.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  INTERJECTION

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  No, the PAC is coming home.  The third key aspect that was utilised, and I believe abused by politicians in the past, was the issue of the demarcation of boundaries.  Politicians would decide to include or exclude communities in a particular area.  That will now be in the hands of a National Demarcation Board whose role it is to visit communities, to judge those issues, and to make decisions for all the local authorities in the country.  The first issue to note is that those aspects that tended to be abused by politicians in the past are now out of the hands of Provincial or even National Ministers.

The second issue is that we now have vested power in the Local Governments themselves.  If Durban has the competence to run its affairs, let it do so.  There is no way in which the Provincial Government or even the National Government should intervene if it is doing its job properly.  Indeed Durban today has been voted the best managed city administration on the continent of Africa.  That is something of which we are very proud, because what one is saying is that they are beginning to manage their own affairs, and they should not be subject to Provincial or National Government intervention.

The first issue on which we disagree is that the ANC believes that a sphere of Local Government must get on and do its own job.  It must be the ones that are ultimately accountable to its ratepayers and its residents.  On this issue we absolutely disagree with those that believe that there should be warlords or overlords, at a provincial or national level that will go and just intervene in Local Governments at their own whim.  In this White Paper, the basic principle is to let Local Governments govern themselves within provincial and national constraints, but let us ensure that we are not going away from that principle of letting the people govern.  That is the first issue that I want to say is fundamentally at odds with each other.

The second is the issue of the so-called mega-city debate.  I am today declaring that the hon MEC Peter Miller is in fact Mega-City Miller.  Because this Province today, of the six metropolitan areas in South Africa under the transitional provisions, Durban is the most mega-city of all of them.  Two-thirds of its budget, not within the terms of a White Paper, is determined by the Metropolitan Council.  The other one-third is dealt with by the substructures.  So those in this House who want to start introducing the issue of mega-cities into this debate must look at the facts.  The fact is Durban has been able to manage its administration well, and deliver on a scale that even this Province has not been able to manage, to deliver services, ordinary services to people, precisely because it is a strong uni-city.  Two-thirds of that budget is determined and controlled by 70 councillors out of the 300 councillors in the metropolitan as a whole.  Only one-third is dealt with by the other 80% of the councillors.  So you already have in effect a uni-city in Durban today.

Sorry, did you give a minute or so?  I am sorry, hon Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, just one minute.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  How many minutes?

MR D H MAKHAYE:  About five.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  There is only one Chair, and it is not Dumisani Makhaye.  [LAUGHTER]

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  The second issue around which we might want to debate is the notion of the so-called mega-cities.  What this document is doing, is to say we want effective metropolitan governance.  In South Africa today four of the metropolitan areas are larger than four of the provinces in South Africa.  They have bigger budgets and more people in them.  Do not start dealing with complex entities like Durban, like Greater Pretoria, like Kayalami, Greater Johannesburg, like Greater Cape Town as if they are something subject to Governments.  They in effect are larger than four of our Provincial Governments.  I will have more to say later on the scale of delivery issues.  Thank you, hon Chair, I will sit down now.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order!  When I made the announcement about tolerating cell phones in the House, I did not include the press gallery.  I have heard two sounds from the press gallery.  The press are not exonerated from this ruling.  If they need to contact people outside this House, they observe the Rules of the House.  They are not to use cell phones in the House.  Thank you.  I call upon the hon member Mr J Aulsebrook.  You have got 12 minutes, sir.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I rise to compliment the Minister for a forthright and sobering address.  Having covered most of the topical aspects of Local Government, I will attempt not to repeat anything that has been said, but if I do it will only be to highlight and emphasise, and certainly to caution people against certain issues that we may face in Local Government.

The budget of this Department has been cut by some 25%, and the Minister has already outlined the implications of such a reduction.  My main concern as far as this reduction is concerned, is the impact it will have on rural development and planning.  I sincerely hope that we do not neglect those particular areas.

As far as the Portfolio Committee is concerned, it has dealt with, certainly in the past year, two major legislative processes, namely the DFA/PDA process, and then of course the Local Government Green Paper/White Paper process.

With regards to the DFA Bill, it was workshopped for some two years in this Province, and extensively dealt with.  We have subsequently dealt with the Provincial Development Bill which is about to come before this House.  But those two issues are a subject for another debate.  I will certainly not dwell on these two pieces of legislation, but will rather focus on the White Paper/Green Paper process which we have just gone through.

When Minister Valli Moosa announced the Green Paper process, we in the Portfolio Committee, and I must say most people in KwaZulu-Natal, were very enthusiastic to participate in this process.  In fact, our Minister called a meeting at the IEC where role-players ...

AN HON MEMBER:  No, ICC.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  ICC.  Apologies, ICC and all other role-players from Local Government throughout the Province gathered.  It was very enthusiastically attended and certainly the participation in the working groups was very lively.  When we came to the plenary we brought various suggestions from those working groups.  These were tabled and accepted by virtually all present as to be the Province's point of view, and what we would like to see incorporated in a White Paper.

This was in November.  Come December, I think it was roundabout the 12th, we came across a White Paper, a first draft of a White Paper.  My concern was that it came out during the parliamentary recess, and the only people that seemed to have had access to this were members of the ANC.  It was not available to the Portfolio Committee.

AN HON MEMBER:  Big brother.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  I then, later on in the month, only through members of your party, I managed to access it.  But later in the month a second draft appeared, after December.  Again during recess, a second draft of that paper.  It also was confined to the ranks of the ANC.

MR A RAJBANSI:  On a point of correction.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  On a point of order.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Point of correction.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, on a point of correction.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Right.  The hon member must make a distinction between Mike Sutcliffe the ANC and Mike Sutcliffe and Associates.  [LAUGHTER]

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Point taken there, Mr Rajbansi.  Thank you.  During the second half of December the second draft of this paper appeared.  As I say, again confined to the ranks of the ANC.

Finally, in March, I think about 14 March, there was the grand launch of the White Paper.  And guess what?  I must admit to no real surprise to us, it contained none of the proposals that came out of our ICC meeting, that were put forward by the Province to National as to what we would like to see in that paper.  This sort of thing begs of me to ask the question, what was the purpose of that White Paper process?

AN HON MEMBER:  Window dressing.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Certainly, if it was for the sake of transparency, there are a lot of questions to be answered there.  But certainly what became transparent was that the format for Local Government was decided long before this process started.  Maybe Dr Sutcliffe could cut out the charade ...

AN HON MEMBER:  The hon.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Hon Dr Sutcliffe.  Show us the final Act that is going to go to Parliament and be passed.  Why are we going through all these processes?

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!  Good question.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Certainly I am convinced that that Bill and Act was sort of concluded before Pravin Gordham moved on to greener pastures.

AN HON MEMBER:  Watch your tax return this year.  [LAUGHTER]

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Let us look at this White Paper and see what it has in store for Local Government.  The metro options mega-cities or mega-cities.  The Minister has already stated that, but that is a fact.  That is all we have a choice of.  Certainly the first option is a single metro council with a 60/40 Ward/PR electoral system.  Each ward would have to appoint a ward committee.  Now quite honestly, this whole issue of a ward committee ...

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Well, that is in the White Paper and we need to deal with it, because it is there.  How can a Committee function when you have a councillor in a ward who is being paid as a councillor, but he is expected to have an appointed committee to work for him, do all his dirty work and not be remunerated.  That is a recipe for disaster.

AN HON MEMBER:  Hear! Hear!  More gravy train. 

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Well, according to the White Paper there is no remuneration for those ward committees.  The second option for the council is a mega-city with original powers and they speak of substructures.  Let us just try and see what these substructures will be doing.  They will have an advisory and supervisory role.  They will not be able to levy rates, they will have no authority and they will not even be a municipality in their own right.

AN HON MEMBER:  Jobs for pals.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Quite honestly, this is no more than another model of mega-city, it is no different from the first.  Dr Sutcliffe, in his second opportunity that he will get to address this House, maybe would like to tell us a bit more about the National Task Team that he has been serving on under Valli Moosa.  They have travelled to the various metros and addressed them.  I must admit, I was invited to the one in Durban, and quite honestly nobody knew exactly what their mandate was.  It might be interesting to find out, but I certainly have my own ideas about what their mandates were.

It is my feeling that the purpose of that task team was to go out and test the water, present the people with what is in this White Paper and just see their reaction.  Mainly to assess the reaction to what is going to be imposed on them.  I do not believe that they went there to listen to what the people had to say.  They were merely testing.  They were merely taking a precaution against unanticipated backlash possibly from their own councillors in those metros, and their own role-players.  I would be very keen to hear the real purpose of that task team.

Let us examine the role of Provincial Government in terms of Local Government.  Provincial Government will establish, co-ordinate, monitor and capacitate Local Government, while the National Government will control the purse strings, (this is certainly of the equitable share), they will approve municipal budgets, they will control and legislate for training.  This is no more than total control of Local Government from the Central.  Provincial will have no specific role in Local Government.

When it comes to the role of traditional leaders, the White Paper is vague, except for the fact that there will be elected Local Government in all rural areas, including tribal areas.  This situation can only be resolved with agreement from traditional leaders as to their relationship between the elected members.

Madam Chair, a new concept that also was introduced in this White Paper is that of the Executive Mayor, certainly a new concept for South Africa.  This would mean that the Mayor would be able to appoint a Cabinet to carry out the executive functions as opposed to the functions being carried out by an executive committee, as we have now.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  INTERJECTION.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order!  I really wish to correct this.  I have always said it is parliamentary to heckle, but it is not good when it is so loud that we cannot hear what the speaker is trying to say.  It is not fair.  Some members have finished their speeches and were listened to without any interference.  I will allow heckling, and comments as long as they do not interfere with what the hon member is trying to put across, because that is very important.  If that does not happen the hon member that is speaking is not getting his chance.  Do what you are doing, but please assist the member in assuring that his speech is heard.  The people in the public gallery are here to see how we perform, and also want to know what the hon members are saying.  I protect everybody in this House.  Do heckle, but please do not disturb the speaker.  Continue, hon member.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Madam Chair, I ask for your protection.  In the sense that I do not know what the hon spokesman of Local Government is saying.  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  That was not protection.  Hon member, will you continue with your speech.  I shall give you a few minutes of extra time.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I was referring to the Executive Mayors' position which is proposed in the White Paper.  We now have the system of an executive committee which deals with these issues, we are now going to entrust this to an individual.  An individual who may not even be directly elected.  He could come through the PR.  In fact we are now going to entrust the running of our city to someone who the electorate have not had an opportunity to decide who should run their city.  In other countries there are mayoral elections where that Mayor is elected, they can decide who that individual should be.  I think it is only right that they should have a say as to who runs their city.

There is another matter of concern, and that is the demarcation of Local Government boundaries.  This will be decided by a nationally appointed body.  If we start taking all these factors into account, let us see what this all interprets into.  We have:

1.	Local Government boundaries that will be determined nationally.
2.	Finances will be controlled nationally.
3.	Legislation passed for Local Government will be done nationally.
4.	Training controlled nationally.
5.	Municipal budgets approved nationally.

These coupled to the fact that there could be six mega-cities with Executive Mayors, this is a scenario that paves the way for perfect central control of the lowest level of Government.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Hon member, you have got one minute left.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  The IFP cautions against this trend, as it takes Government further away from people, and places control in the hands of a few.  Are we not laying the foundation for a centrally controlled, one party State?  I would here like to say that what the Reverend - what the hon Sutcliffe was saying ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Hon Chair, can I ask him a question?  I am his Reverend.

MR V A VOLKER:  Your halo has dropped.

MR J F AULSEBROOK:  What the hon Sutcliffe should have been saying was that the people shall be governed.  In conclusion, I support the budget for this vote, in spite of the fact that it has been cut, but I am reassured by the Minister that he will in fact remain within the budget constraints.  Thank you, Madam Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Before I call the next speaker on the list, I am ushering in the Deputy Chair of Committees, Mr T Mohlomi, to take over this section.  We call upon the hon Miss M Buthelezi, for eight minutes.  Thank you.

MR T S MOHLOMI THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON OF COMMITTEES TAKES THE CHAIR

MISS M N BUTHELEZI:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I want to thank the Minister for his budget speech, and for his commitment in attending Portfolio Committee meetings.

The Constitution enshrines the rights of all people in our country to dignity, equality before the law, freedom and security.  It also affirms our rights to freedom of religion, expression, culture association and movement, as well as our political, labour and property rights.

The Constitution commits Government to take reasonable measures within its available resources to ensure that all South Africans have access to adequate housing, health care, education, food and water, and social security.  Developmental Local Government is intended to have a major impact on the daily lives of South Africans.  When municipalities do not develop their own strategies to meet community needs and improved citizens' quality of life, National Government should adopt a more prescriptive approach towards municipal transformation.

The powers and functions of Local Government should be exercised in a way that has a maximum impact on the social development of communities, in particularly meeting the basic needs of the poor and the growth of the local economy.

Local Government is not directly responsible for creating jobs, but it is responsible for taking active steps to ensure that the overall economic and social conditions of the locality are conducive to the creation of employment opportunities.  Local Government can also promote social development through functions such as arts and culture, the provision of recreational and community facilities, and the delivery of aspects of social welfare services.  The empowerment of marginalised and disadvantaged groups is a critical contribution to social development.  Municipalities should also seek to provide an accessible environment for disabled people, so as to facilitate their independence.

Good basic services, apart from being a constitutional right, are essential to enable people to support family life, find employment, develop their skills and establish their own businesses.  The provision of household infrastructure can particularly make a difference to the lives of women, who usually play the major role in productive work, which sustains the family and the local society.

In the past, Local Government has tended to make its presence felt in communities by controlling or regulating citizens' actions.  While regulations remain an important municipal function, it must be supplemented with leadership, encouragement, practical support and resources for community action.  Municipalities can do a lot to support the individual and community initiative, and to direct community energies into projects and programmes which benefit the area as a whole.  The involvement of youth organisations in this regard is particularly important.  At the same time, the participatory process must not become an obstacle to development, and narrow interest groups must not be allowed to capture the development process.

Socio-economic development and community empowerment is mainly directed at poverty eradication.  The majority of the poor are women, and empowerment strategies which focus on women are likely to prove the most effective and inclusive.  Municipalities need to develop their capacity to understand the diverse needs of women in the community, and address these needs in planning and delivery processes to enhance their impact on poverty eradication.

It is doubtful whether Local Government, as presently designed, is adequately equipped to fulfil these developmental issues.  Local Government has been democratised, but the Local Government system is still structured to meet the demands of the previous era.  A fundamental transformation is required.

Municipalities face great challenges in promoting human rights and meeting human needs, addressing past backlogs and spatial distortions, and planning for a sustainable future.  Local Government can only meet these challenges by working together with local citizens, communities and businesses, and adopting a developmental approach which:

1.	Enhances their capacity as policy and planning centres, able to mobilise and manage a range of development initiatives, resources and processes through a coherent vision and integrated planning framework for their local area.
2.	Focuses their own institutional and financial capacity on the delivery of affordable and sustainable services relevant to the needs of local communities.
3.	A developmental role for Local Government offers substantive benefits to local residents, communities, provincial and national spheres of Government, and the nation as a whole.  

I thank you, Mr Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.  I now wish to call upon the hon member Mr Volker, to address the House for eight minutes.

MR V A VOLKER:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, first of all, I would like to compliment Minister Peter Miller on his effective handling of the Local Government Portfolio, and I also wish him everything of the best in the handling of the Finance Portfolio.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR V A VOLKER:  The position of Local Government, as we are facing it for the future, is unfortunately one where Local Government is being systematically undermined by certain policy measures which are being implemented at national level.

The unfortunate situation is that that is all on the alter of the policy of centralisation where, contrary to what the hon Dr Sutcliffe said, the people shall rule, it is a surreptitious undermining of the word "democracy".  The hon speaker Miss Buthelezi said that democracy has been introduced at Local Government level.  It is not democracy, it is a slogan that has been introduced, but the sloganeering loses its effectiveness if there is no delivery.  The delivery cannot be provided at national level, it can only be done on a sustainable, affordable basis at local level.  That is why Local Government is in fact called Local Government.  It is not Regional Government, it is not Government determined at national level, where at the moment the whole determination of Local Government, in regulations and everything, is done at national level.  The regulations also are being written in some back room at national level.  It is just totally impossible for them to have an understanding for local circumstances.

Therefore, the manner in which this is being undermined at national level, it is unfortunately a situation that instead of having Local Government, you have an undermining thereof at national level because the powers that be at national level are not intent on letting the people rule, but are intent on introducing the policy of centralisation on the basis that it was done in communist countries, such as China and Russia and other communist countries.

The South African Communist Party has boasted that they have increased their membership of the National Parliament from 50 to 80.  Local Government was handled at national level by one of the prominent leaders of the Communist Party, Mr Pravin Gordham, who is now the Senior Deputy Commissioner of Inland Revenue.  An important role is now being played by another leading communist, namely the hon Dr Sutcliffe.  [LAUGHTER]  Unfortunately, the whole approach of Local Government management is being centralised on the communist basis which has failed in Russia, has failed in North Korea, has failed in China, and everywhere it has an undermining of the principle of the people shall rule.  The people shall only rule if the determination is made at local level.

On this issue I wish to refer hon members to the fact that their very policy of undermining the role of traditional leaders, not only traditional leaders, but traditional structures and the traditions of traditional communities is part of the communist process of undermining traditions that have played a stabilising role in the community.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please!

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Chairman, I incidentally came across a publication of a speech made by the then Minister of so-called Native Affairs, Dr E G Jansen in Parliament in Cape Town on 20 April 1950.  Therein paraphrased, because this document is in Afrikaans, he says:

	Unfortunately there are strong elements trying to destroy everything that is part of the traditional national heritage of indigenous people.  The stable background of their tribal customs and traditions is being undermined and destabilised by these elements which are seeking to shake the indigenous people loose from their anchors of stability.

The National Party has appreciated and acknowledged the stabilising effect of traditional customs and traditional people, and the leadership structures.  The National Party has recognised and appreciated that, as evidenced in this speech made in Parliament in 1950.  We have all along, in every single country where the communists have taken over control of the leadership, and even if it is the tail that wags the ANC dog, as in the ANC at the moment, the situation is that the first element of the introduction of communism is to destroy traditional structures.  As long as that is their approach, there is no way that there can be real co-operation between those who respect traditional structures, and those that want to destroy traditional structures.  The hon member Mr Bheki Cele also admitted yesterday that he is one of the leading members of the Communist Party in this Parliament.

AN HON MEMBER:  Well, I am a communist.  That is what I am.

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Chairman, the situation is that when the negotiation process was undertaken ...

AN HON MEMBER:  Like the Broerderbond.

MR V A VOLKER:  When the negotiation process was undertaken to write the Constitution there was no negotiation at Local Government level, or at any level, to extend elected Local Government to tribal structures.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR V A VOLKER:  That was introduced surreptitiously by the ANC, because there just had been no negotiation on that ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear the hon member Mr Rajbansi please.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Will the hon member take a reasonable question?

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Chairman, please silence this verbose nuisance.  [LAUGHTER]  

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I think Mr Rajbansi is rising on a point of order.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  That is unparliamentary.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear Mr Rajbansi please.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  It is absolutely unparliamentary.  He does not have a Whip to protect him.  I must protect him.  You cannot have someone say to him a verbose nuisance.  That is unparliamentary.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please.  Can we hear the hon member Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Has he refused to take the question?

HON MEMBERS:  Yes.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Is the member going to take the question?

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Chairman, you have indicated that I have one minute left, then he jumps up and tries to ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Is the hon member going to take the question?

MR V A VOLKER:  No.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Okay.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you.  Thank you, I accept that, but he must remain in the chamber when I speak.  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Rajbansi.  You can take your seat.  The hon member may resume his speech.

MR V A VOLKER:  Thank you.  Mr Chairman, I would like to thank the hon Minister for having taken the initiative to try and introduce financial discipline at Local Government level, because this is one of the most important issues to make a Local Government effective.  The way that the ANC and their communist elements try to undermine financial stability by introducing and promoting the boycott campaign, is the main cause for unstable Local Government at every level where there is instability.  The only way that that can be re-established is by the introduction of sustainable, affordable financial stability, and affordable services.  I thank you, Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Volker.  Next on the list is the hon member Mrs Mkhize, who will address the House for eight minutes.

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  I thank you, Mr Chairperson.  I will begin by commending the hon Minister for Local Government for his very informative budget speech that he tabled before us this morning.

It is a bit disturbing to hear the hon member Dr Sutcliffe saying that the ANC says the people shall govern.  I would say, it does not do it, and if he had said that then I would agree.  One example is the manner in which the Local Government White Paper has ignored inputs by the Local Government, who are the people who have to be ruled by that Local Government Bill.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  What party is your Mayor from?

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  The manner in which the ANC wants to impose its rule over ~Amakhosi~ areas, it is not, according to the people governing.  It is a well-known fact that the ANC lost a massive area that is lead by ~Amakhosi~ during the last elections.  According to what the ANC says, it should be the ~Amakhosi~ that have the last word in the areas that are ruled by them.

AN HON MEMBER:  Are you going to live there?  Why do you not go and live there.

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  My message is, practice what you preach.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

AN HON MEMBER:  I would suggest that you go and live somewhere else.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  The confusion and conflict that prevails in our townships is appalling.  The culture of non-payment preached by some of the members in the benches across is fast reaping its fruit.  The people are not paying.  What is unfortunate is that the same people who preached non-payment are today in the position where they are forced to preach payment.  As a result they have embarked on using draconian methods, and the communities are suffering.  That is stopping the water supply, cutting off the electricity supply with a result that the people are left in darkness and are without water.  This happens in some of the Local Governments in some provinces.

People want to experience a better life.  They want to see better roads.  They want to see delivery.  In order to get them to pay they must see delivery.  That is the manner in which we have to encourage our people to pay by delivering to them.  Power to the people.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MRS N C MKHIZE: (Whip):  The people shall govern.  What this entails, as far as I am concerned, is power to the provinces.  When laws are made the people's opinions must be considered.  I thank the hon Minister, and I support his budget speech.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.  Next on the list is the hon member ~Inkosi~ Mlaba, who will address the House for eight minutes.

~INKOSI~ Z M MLABA:  Mr Chairperson, a lot has been said by the Minister, the Local Government Portfolio Committee Chairperson, and the speakers who spoke before me about the Local Government budget for 1998/1999.

It is obvious that during this financial year, the local authorities in the Province will find it very difficult to cope with the load of work they are supposed to do for their communities.  Both the rural and the black urban communities expect that their areas will be developed to try and narrow the gap between the disadvantaged and the advantaged communities.  We had hoped that during this financial year the budget would be much better than during the previous years.

Mr Chair, the African National Congress has a proud record of bringing the system of traditional leaders into a constitutional domain.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

~INKOSI~ Z M MLABA:  During the KwaZulu-Natal indaba debate in the 1980's, the role of traditional leaders was completely left out of their proposed Constitution, by the IFP and its allies.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!

~INKOSI~ Z M MLABA:  In 1987 when the ANC published its constitutional proposals, it ensured the position of ~Amakhosi~.  Even Ambrosini's first Constitution passed by the KwaZulu-Natal Legislative Assembly was passed without it mentioning the role of the ~Amakhosi~.  So the ANC has a proud record.

The ANC went further and said ~Amakhosi~ must have a specific relationship with the elected Local Government.  ~Amakhosi~, as unifiers and community builders, must have a role in bringing about peace, stability and development in their communities.  They must play a role in interacting with all spheres of the Government to encourage the development of their communities.  The majority of the rural poor in our Province do not have the benefit of Local Governments.  We cannot call regional councils, Local Government, because of the following:

Do they promote democracy?  The answer is no, because they are too large and undemocratic.  Do they bring about development?  While they have delivered some projects, the development is not sustainable.  Do they effectively distribute resources?  No, although the new finance proposals mentioned by Dr Sutcliffe will help the rural areas.  I am sure of that.

The ANC calls for this House to urgently debate the creation of elected primary Local Governments, throughout KwaZulu-Natal, so that the rural poor can enjoy the benefits of democracy and development.  This must happen before the next local election.

In spite of the obvious problems we are facing in the Province, I support the budget for Local Government.  I thank you, sir.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.  It is not yet 1 o'clock, so I am tempted to call upon the hon member Mr Burrows to speak.  He will be the last speaker before lunch.  When he finishes his speech we are going to break for lunch.

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, the people shall govern.  I do not think anybody has got any particular problem with the slogan.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

AN HON MEMBER:  Wait for the sting.

MR R M BURROWS:  But the people shall govern must mean exactly that, not Sutcliffe must govern.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR R M BURROWS:  Okay.  Here I want to direct a specific number of questions to the hon member Dr Sutcliffe which he can answer during his second turn.  These are questions that are being asked outside.  One of them was the question of the role he is playing in the National Task Team, appointed by Valli Moosa, to investigate the implementation of the White Paper, particularly at local authority level and at the mega-city level.

The second question relates to the role that he either personally or as a member of a company, Sutcliffe and Associates, has been playing in the Local Government structures in KwaZulu-Natal.  The specific question is whether his company tendered for or has been appointed to run any structure on behalf of National or any level of Government?  It is an easy question.  Because quite frankly, we have got to examine the situation from the point of view of the Constitution, that all of us have got to act openly, and all of us have got to act with the knowledge of others.

If the people shall govern, then quite frankly the National Demarcation Board should not be the body that shall govern.  It should be the local authorities themselves in consultation with the provincial and national structures that should determine the boundaries.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!

MR R M BURROWS:  At the end of the day Dr Sutcliffe is right when he says the Provincial Minister should not have dictatorial powers.  Neither should the National Minister, and neither should the National Demarcation Board.

When we talk about broad consultation and the people shall govern, let us give the power to the people to govern.  This is the point that I am wanting to make, that if you have an area that is not ANC, the ANC should not have the power to dictate to it, what it does, and how it spends its money.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR R M BURROWS:  The position of the powers of the MEC, and here I agree with the hon the MEC, I do not think that this debate, next year, is going to be of any great substance at all.  The MEC will have lost his powers to the national level, and the national debate will be the one that is taking place.  If you examine the White Paper in terms of the comments about the word "prescriptiveness", and it is in the White Paper, they say at national level no, they will not be prescriptive provided that the local authorities do X, and Y, and Z.  I will tell you that is prescriptive.  That is prescriptive already.  It is exactly the problem I have.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  May I interrupt the hon member please.  The Hansard people are complaining that they cannot pick up your voice because you are not talking into the microphone.

MR R M BURROWS:  I will certainly talk into the microphone.  I am sorry about that, to Hansard, and to you Chair.  The problem that I have with the ANC, is that when they talk about transformation, it is not about transformation per se, but it is that transformation has got to be the first thing that happens before anything else happens.  That is unacceptable.  There are many things in this world, including delivery of services, including delivery of resources that have to happen simultaneously with transformation.  But no, transformation has to be written at large.

We need to in fact examine some of the things that have just been said.  The speech of the hon ~Inkosi~ Mlaba is exactly pertinent to the point, and we would agree with it.  But he is not asking for transformation, he is asking for the application of democracy.

MR J H JEFFERY:  What do you know about democracy and transformation?

MR R M BURROWS:  I know a hell of a lot, you transformed yourself from DP into ANC.  [LAUGHTER]  Okay, let us just accept that.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Mr Chairperson, on a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear the point of order from Mr Jeffery?

MR R M BURROWS:  This, Chair, no doubt is a point of personal explanation.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  He is rising on a point of order.

MR J H JEFFERY:  I have never been a member of the DP.  Can the member please withdraw what he said.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can the hon member proceed please.

MR R M BURROWS:  The hon member was a member of the Progressive Federal Party which he left to join the ANC and the Communist Party.  That is a jump from capitalism to communism, but nevertheless, he can make transformations.  [LAUGHTER]

I simply want to say, Chair, that when we examine the role and position of regional councils, we have got to accept that the last speaker is absolutely correct.  They are "lomp", they are overlarge, they are ineffective, and in fact they are not the structures that we should have.

When we come to the role of traditional leaders, and here I want to object to the speech of the hon member Mr Volker, the National Party's role in appointing traditional leaders, in removing traditional leaders is exactly in conflict with the conservative approach that he was trying to paint.  Let us accept that from the time of Shepstone, through all the white Governments subsequently, including the National Party ...

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Chairman, on a point of personal ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  You cannot raise a point.  You are not in your seat, Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  I accept your ruling, but that is what I want to point out about the NATS.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member Mr Burrows may proceed.

MR R M BURROWS:  Well, do you mind if I point it out first.  From Shepstone, through all the white Governments, United Party and others, and the National Party, we need to examine traditional leadership in its historic context.  There are many traditional leaders who are jumped up upstarts created by the National Party and others.  Let us identify them and separate those from the true traditional leaders of this country.

Let us ask questions, sir, about the Ingonyama Trust Act and its amendment.  Let us ask the question why in fact that has still not been implemented?  Why there is still a situation where people cannot get title deeds in R293 towns?  Let us finally, sir, ask questions about the Local Government elections.  The hon Judge Kriegler said Local Government elections will be held nationally in October and November of next year.  Now I understand that that is not the case.  I understand that there is now the possibility that they may be postponed to the year 2000.  Let the Minister fill us in about what is happening at MINMEC level on Local Government.

Finally, sir, in connection with audit queries, with cash flow and viability of local authorities, we need to accept, at least, the proposal that a number of the local authorities we have in this Province is excessive and that there needs to be a combination simply in order to provide viability.  In connection with that, sir, we need to reduce the number of councillors, and certainly that is a very strong condition from the DP.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Burrows.  At this point we are going to break for lunch, and I wish to request members to be back here at 2 o'clock on the dot, especially our first speaker after lunch, the hon member Ms Xulu, because if she is not here by 2 o'clock, she will forfeit her time.  That is our Rule.  The Committee of Supply adjourns.

	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE SUSPENDED AT 13:02
	RESUMED AT 14:00

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I wish to call upon the hon member Ms Xulu to address the House for 10 minutes.

MS M XULU: (Whip): 

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order! Order please!

MS M XULU: (Whip): TRANSLATION:  Thank you, hon Chairperson.  Firstly, I want to praise the ~Inkosi~ of the Mlabas.  Unfortunately, he has just stepped out.  I heard him saying the ANC respects ~Amakhosi~.  It likes them and it commends them.  I am saying maybe it would be nice that the ANC then issues a statement saying that it accepts the Kingdom of KwaZulu.  

It is so, hon Chairperson, the white paper on Local Government planning is terrifying.  I say so because it originates from the top, attempts to bypass the provinces all the way to municipalities;  it wants to give municipalities powers that exceed those of the provinces.  Although it is so, we are saying municipalities themselves should not perform functions for a party, but they should perform functions according to the needs of the people.

Hon Chairperson, I am talking in particular about matters concerning people who were removed from suburbs a long time ago by the Government of that time, removing black people, saying they are not allowed to live in suburbs where there is electricity and everything else that is flashy.  These areas are still facing a huge difficulty.  It is in these areas where councillors have to stop being selfish but think of those people who are living where they too are supposed to be living.  

Committees representative of residents of those areas should be created and partisanship should stop because in that way information cannot be gathered from the people.  

The ANC should instruct its councillors that people want real service and not these games that they are currently engaged in.

When I talk about the ~Umlazi~ area, for instance, we knew that we had a very nice area of placing our deceased relatives' graveyard.  Today it is saddening.  Today it is a disgrace.  Today is bad luck that our people are placed in a thicket, in forests.  The existing council does not care for our deceased.

You in the African National Congress must assist because we know that you grabbed everything in towns, create jobs for people and stop freezing positions.  Some of you are running away from black populated areas to live in suburbs.

I am saying ~Umlazi~ is filled with thickets.  People are unable to bury their beloved.  The graveyard is a respectable place.  We have a history, we black people in particular in that we respect our deceased people.  I do not know about those who were actually living in the wilderness, like yourselves, as you are accustomed to living in the wilderness.

There exists a problem when we look at the functions of councillors, advise councillors in areas such as Lamontville, where the water supply has been shut down, people themselves disconnected the water supply, punctured water pipes and disconnected everything and access everything by force.  Why is that so?

Last year I thought it would improve.  Maybe people were doing that because they were still learning.  I mentioned in this House that, for instance, in our area at ~Umlazi~, people who were reading meters for water supply were stopped and replaced with others.

Let us in earnest examine whether the people placed in those positions know the job they are doing.  If you listen to what is happening at KwaMashu, meters there are new, they are hardly a year old.  But it is said that people have debts of R3 000.  Could that water supply be calculated accordingly?  I am requesting you, leaders of the African National Congress, that the council should not be partisan.  The existing council is for the people.  As you are saying that people will be in power - Bheki, you are a newcomer, keep quiet.  If you say people will be in power, they should feel that things belong to them.

It is of no use talking about a mega-city when black populated areas are forgotten.  Elevate those areas which were called black areas.  I said that people were removed from Durban, from suburbs.  The past Government said they were not good enough for Durban, they should go and stay over there by themselves.  These are the areas, Chairperson, that have to be examined first.

I am grateful, Chairperson, for the hon Minister's speech and I support his budget.  Although the Minister has a problem, we all have a problem as we all know that funds have been cut.  But I am saying, woe unto you, the African National Congress, come 1999.  The elections are coming.  What will you say you gave people?  What did you deliver to the people?  I am asking you.  Thank you.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON: [Thank you hon member].  I now wish to call upon the hon member Mr Ngidi, to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR N V E NGIDI: (Whip):  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  Speaking on this vote last year, I pointed out that we still did not have legislation.  Unfortunately, a year later this is still the unfinished story of Local Government.  This puts everybody in a difficult position, as it leads to a situation of uncertainty.

However, we are hopeful that this situation will soon be remedied as the White Paper process is being brought to a conclusion.  It will lay a good basis for a Local Government that promotes development, and we will cease to debate from standpoints of illusionary party political fancies.

The legislation that we look forward to, must begin to lay a firm foundation for the future of Local Government in this Province.  It is legislation that will bring certainty.  It is legislation that confirms one Department of Local Government, whether it is in the rural or urban areas.  There is no gainsaying that this will also be cost effective, which is something we should work towards, especially during these days of economic hardship.

Legislation will also bring into effect administrative certainty.  We hope that when we have legislation we will have a situation where the Province will at last assign powers to local councils.  One cannot overemphasise the problems caused by the lack of power to local councils.  One wonders what has taken the Department of Local Government and Housing so long to assign the required powers, when a day hardly passes without people complaining about the fact that national does not assign powers to provinces.  We would like the Minister to expedite this matter.

The lack of devolution of authority to local councils has led to a number of problems.  Firstly, a number of projects remain in limbo as it is not clear which authority has the final say over the project in question.  This leads to a situation where development is either slow in coming, or is stopped altogether.  As a result a lot of strain is put on the communities.

Secondly, we complain about an over-bloated public service.  The devolution of authority would greatly assist in streamlining matters in this regard, and help this Province to save on much needed revenue.  This coupled with the fact that it is difficult for local councils to control staff members who may not necessarily be under their authority.  Undoubtedly this also affects the output of local councils.

Thirdly, local councils are denied the revenue that should be finding its way to their coffers.  The devolution of authority to local councils would, to some degree, enhance the financial capacity of these councils.

Besides, local councils need to control their own resources if they are to be effective.  We expect these councils to put in place programmes of transformation.  This they cannot do if they do not totally control the lifeblood of any government - the budget.

Fourthly, some local councils have for some time now been trying to deal with corruption that emanated from the ~Apartheid~ structures and practices.  Their effectiveness has been stunted by their lack of authority.  This has negatively affected their capacity to deliver.  One gets the feeling that there are people who are being protected.  The Province fears, that if the local councils were capacitated to dig deeper, they would uncover a lot of things which would embarrass a number of those, who hitherto, were thought to be untouchable.

Some of us hope that when the legislation finally materialises, it would deal once and for all with the unfinished story of incorporating rural areas into neighbouring urban local councils.  The advent of legislation will give the public yet another opportunity to participate in this process, which was frustrated as a result of narrow party political interests.  This will happen in a new situation where experience has either proved us wrong or right.  I believe that those of us who were advocating incorporation would have been vindicated with the passage of time.  You only have to look at the KwaXimba area which is under Metro, and as a result has experienced unprecedented development.  Over and above that, the ~Inkosi~ of the tribe has lost none of his traditional powers, and his people still respect him in the same way as they did in the past, perhaps even more so now.

Mr Chairperson, another unfinished story as far as Local Government is concerned, is rural Local Government.  It is sad that up until now we have not as a Province developed a model for rural Local Government.  As we develop this model, we must consider the fact that whatever model we develop it must be attuned to service delivery and be a viable agent for development.  This model must also promote economic development in rural areas and really improve the lives of our rural people.

To be able to meet the abovementioned criteria, rural Local Government must be attuned to overcome the following:

*	Landlessness and overcrowding found in the former homeland areas and inappropriate farming methods on commercial farms, which have led to land degradation and soil erosion.  This is coupled with the fact that we have environmental management policies and practices that are sectoral and fragmented.

*	Current land ownership and land development patterns that strongly reflect the political and economic conditions of the ~Apartheid~ era.

*	~Apartheid~ spatial planning that created a rural landscape devoid of economic opportunities for the disadvantaged majority, especially women; devoid of local markets and dependent on distant cities and towns for employment, goods and services.

*	Decades of discrimination and oppression, lack of skills and experience and rural finance, lack of markets where small farmers can trade their produce; lack of support services for sustainable small-scale farmers.

Taking the above into cognisance, we have to ask ourselves whether the present structures of rural Local Government are best suitable for this kind of work.  Can tribal structures and demarcations with all their historical limitations really deliver in this way?  Does the institution of traditional leadership have the capacity to meet the challenges in the rural areas?  It is time to face reality, and stop being governed by political dreams.

Mr Chairperson, in conclusion, I crave your indulgence to go off at a tangent and say, the people shall govern, whether they are in urban areas or in rural areas.  The ANC will lead the people in governance.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Next on the list of speakers is the hon member Mrs Galea, who will address the House for five minutes.

MRS C E GALEA:  Thank you, Chairperson.  I wish to thank the Minister of Local Government for circulating the report timeously.  I just hope that other Ministers will follow in this regard.

Section 152 of the Constitution lists the objects of Local Government as:

1.	(a)	To provide democratic and accountable government for local communities;
	(b)	To ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner;
	(c)	To promote the social and economic development;
	(d)	To promote a safe and healthy environment; and 
	(e)	To encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the matters of local government.

2.	A municipality must strive, within its financial and administrative capacity, to achieve the objects set out in subsection (1).

The Minister has already touched upon these things.  Rates on property are levied to provide and maintain infrastructure and services, such as roads, drainage, water and electricity.  All property owners pay rates for services that benefit everybody in the area.  Rates are paid for things such as roads, clinics, libraries and the administration of the area.  Services such as water and electricity, and sometimes refuse removal are not covered by rates.  These are paid separately by each resident.  Every month the residents receive an account for water and electricity which they used the month before.  These monies are paid to local authorities.  There are still pockets of the non-payment culture remaining, resulting in many local authorities being unable to balance their budget, and worse, still cannot claim for future improvements.

In Local Government, when working with the budget, the following principles are used:

1.	Affordable.
2.	Application of development principles.
3.	Ensure all needs are served.
4.	Review the standards of operations.

Chairperson, hon members, I beg for your indulgence for the next few minutes.  Last week, one of the hon members of this House mentioned the Alamein Avenue road closure.  This is a Local Government competence.  These are extracts from the Council's Traffic Department report dated 26 September 1996, to consider the re-opening of Alamein Avenue.

	Various sketch plans for the possible re-opening of Alamein Avenue have been prepared and the estimated construction costs are R900 000 for the intersection of Alamein Avenue and Grimsby Road alone.  The estimated cost for the necessary upgrading of the local residential streets on safety grounds to appropriate through routing standards would be in the region of R6 million, excluding any relocation of services that may be required.
	
	The re-opening of Alamein Avenue is not supported in order to reduce traffic congestion in Grimsby/Higginson 
	Highway.  This will result in the traffic network surrounding residential areas becoming overloaded.  Leicester Road, which is just 100 metres down from Alamein Avenue, currently meets the needs of motorists wishing to travel to Kenyon Howden Road or to the Montclair/Woodlands area.  As a long term solution in relieving the Higginson Highway/Grimsby Road congestion, the alternative access options to Chatsworth be reviewed.  

The recommendation was:  That Alamein Avenue remains closed to Higginson Highway.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MRS C E GALEA:  Thank you.  The hon member who spoke about this should take a drive through this area and see all races living in harmony, not only those who he calls racists.  Only due to the lack of funds, the road improvements have not yet taken place.  I believe that the funds for this project could be used in other areas where there is a greater need (because there is a road there).  I thank you, Chairperson.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon Mrs Galea.  Next to address the House is the hon member Mr Rajbansi, who will address the House for eight minutes.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  The hon Mrs Connie Galea is a very dignified person.  I do not want to cross swords with her, but she raised a topic, Mr Chairman, which I would condemn to the heavens as racism.  I will do something more.  Recently the South Central Council had a request to upgrade a Muslim cemetery in Merebank which had been flooded.  The National Party voted against it.  It is on record.  They voted against it.  There are other areas where religious organisations wanted some extensions and they voted against it.

What about Overport?  The hon Mr Meer was not allowed to take a shortcut above the racecourse, on a dual carriageway, because the whites did not want to see a black face pass by their homes.  Mr Chairman, this democratic Government must ensure that the acts of racism committed in the past be eliminated.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR A RAJBANSI:  Now La Lucia Mall was built and suddenly the people were very concerned to see Indian, African and coloured faces driving on the road through to the shopping centre.  It was declared a one-way street.  Declared a one-way street not on traffic grounds.  If they want to say it is due to traffic considerations, why did they thwart the efforts to build a second access road to Chatsworth.  Every time the planners planned the road they decided to extend the reserve.

This report was written by an official who has not been transformed.  I go and sit in the gallery during the council meetings.  The councillors do not take political decisions, they take decisions even on traffic considerations.

I am happy the hon Mr Burrows, who pointed out that in a great statement made by hon Mr Volker, that the National Party, 50 years ago, were the pseudo champions of traditional rights in this country.  But of course, I would mention in addition, who was Dr Albert John Luthuli?  They referred to him as ex-Chief.  I told him, "As far as the NATS are concerned you are an ex-Chief, but as far as the people are concerned you are the Chief".  So they appointed Chiefs.  They removed people who, according to traditional law, should have been the Chiefs of the people of the area.  To come here in 1998 and say that in 1950 somebody championed the cause of traditional leadership in this country is the biggest hogwash of the century.

I want to refer to the hon Mr Bhamjee, there is a by-election on Wednesday.  I was driving through here on Sunday and I saw, "Hang the killers, hang the rapists".  But if you are telling the voters, and I hope the Natal Witness is listening, you must hang killers, and the National Party that said in 1996 hang the killers, placed on the election list in the North Local Council a person who was sentenced to death for killing a white girl.

AN HON MEMBER:  Where?

MR A RAJBANSI:  In Ireland.

AN HON MEMBER:  Where?

MR A RAJBANSI:  In Ireland.  And when he stood for my party, Mr Chairman, I want to disburse something, the National Party caucus agreed with the Conservative Party that I should remove him from Parliament, and thereafter the legislation, to amend the Constitution to remove him from Parliament.  But in 1996 they honoured a killer, a convicted killer, by placing him for election while in all the areas they were ostentatiously placing boards, "Hang the killers".  Tell me why he is not a councillor now?  You removed him.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon member speak into the mike please.

MR A RAJBANSI:  He is no longer a councillor because they removed him.  They did not remove him because of what the history states, they removed him because he voted for another party in the election of the Executive Committee.  For no other reason.  Absolutely no other reason.  The voters in that by-election, every voter in that by-election must be told that as far as hanging the killers, the biggest hypocrisy comes from the party that is hanging the posters.  They should hang their heads in shame.  If anybody there is worth his salt, should stay far away from this political party.  It is hypocritical.  But in any case, why I am saying this ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS!

MR A RAJBANSI:  The James Commission was manufactured by you all.  Let us have a commission.  Anton Ackermann was a NAT.  He is a Broerderbonder.  Do you know the Seychelles' trial, when we talk of Judges?  There was a Judge who on the first day of the trial, Mr Chairman, in this country scribbled the names of the accused and wrote the sentences.  The trial lasted three months.  A cleaner picked this up and he went to the defence team and they said: "How can we expose this Judge".  At the end of the trial the sentences were the same.  He is talking about the James Commission.

The James Commission is a Commission of shame.  They should hang their heads in shame, because they said in this chamber that they are going to reduce a politician to political dust, a few months ago.  [LAUGHTER]  A few months ago a National Party member, in Durban, said that it is their wish to destroy the Minority Front.  From that day the self-destruction of the National Party commenced.  The DP is doing the job.  [LAUGHTER]  The DP is doing the job.  We do not have to put in any effort.  Who said the National Party is dead?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One and a half minutes.

MR A RAJBANSI:  None other than Mr Pik Botha.  I want to make an appeal.  Something was said about communism.  I want to really reprimand Dr Mike Sutcliffe.  When the Chinese came to this country he could not show a communist branch.  So he came to the Indian areas.  He said, "See these red flags, these are party branches".  [LAUGHTER]  We fly red flags because we pray to Lord Hanuman. 

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR A RAJBANSI:  If you go to the Indian areas, we fly red flags because we pray to Lord Hanuman.  Mr Meer will tell you who Lord Hanuman is.  But he was telling the Chinese that these are my branches.  [LAUGHTER]

But nevertheless, I want the hon ANC members to note the comments made by the hon Mr Miller. 

MR M F REHMAN:  Mr Chairman, is it parliamentary for a member to point a finger like Mr P W Botha?

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr P W Botha learnt from me.  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  You may proceed, Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  The comments made by the hon Minister about the White Paper must be taken seriously.  I want the people from ~Umlazi~ and KwaMashu to note, that it was Minister Miller and I who saved them from disaster.  We took them to the electoral court and won.  Could you imagine ~Umlazi~ and KwaMashu being separate councils?  There are flaws in the White Paper.  Let us admit it.  Let us have a discussion to see how we can point out those flaws.  I want to make an appeal to those who are conducting surveys, we should say there is a storm in the white teacup.  There is a storm now in the white teacup, not a storm outside the white teacup, it does not affect us.  If the National Party says in Chatsworth that it is their dream to destroy the MF, in 1999 they will see the greatest destruction with these hands ...

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is over.  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Miss Barrett to speak for 10 minutes.

MISS B BARRETT:  Mr Chairman, hon members of the House.  One of the daunting tasks facing Local Government is the implementation of National Government's policy, as reflected in the White Paper on Local Government, and the financial implications this policy will have for our Province.

Due to time limitations I am merely going to focus on the viability of the mega-city option for metropolitan Government.  In the initial Green Paper on Local Government, two forms of metropolitan Government were proposed, namely two-tier and mega-city systems.  Two-tier systems can take a variety of forms, with varied powers and functions, whether fixed by statute or negotiated.  Two-tier systems thus fall along a scale reflecting the relative powers and functions of each tier.  At the one extreme would be very strong local councils and a very weak metro, and at the other, the inverse of this.  Common to both, however, is the notion of each tier having original powers and functions, whether limited or extensive.  Simply stated, the non-metro city option would be on one extreme of the scale, and the mega-city option on the other.  In the IFP's view, there should be sufficient flexibility to enable a range of two-tier systems to be established, depending on the characteristics and needs of the local authority involved.

Unfortunately, however, none of this balanced discussion was replicated in the White Paper, which merely highlighted the disadvantages of the two-tier system and the advantages of the mega-city.  Nowhere do you find the opposite, the pros of the two-tier and the cons of the mega-city.  In reality, the arguments posed in favour of the mega-city option were unsatisfactory and spurious.  Based on the notion that it was necessary to consolidate the benefits of metropolitan Government, the National Minister proceeded to justify the mega-city with blanket statements that are often immaterial to the model concerned.  For example, that the mega-city option is necessary to promote spatial integration and socially inclusive forms of development; that direct citizen participation in independent local councils will encourage race based politics; that legislated two-tier systems necessarily entail a standard allocation of powers and functions for all metro areas, etcetera.

These are red herrings to the extent that they either do not necessarily apply to all metropolitan areas, or that there are alternative mechanisms to deal with them.  There is no reason why a two-tier system cannot promote spatial integration and socially inclusive development; why citizen participation in local councils will encourage race-based politics if the council boundaries are appropriately delimited; and why there has to be a standard allocation of powers and functions - they could be negotiated with provincial oversight, if necessary.

Furthermore, the White Paper is notably silent on international comparisons.  That is because, of all the world's metropolitan areas, very few comprise mega-cities, and the performance track record of mega-cities is not at all inspiring, and they are certainly not a prerequisite for metropolitan cities to succeed.

But the issue facing us is not merely the merits or otherwise of the mega-city as an option.  The problem is that the mega-city constitutes the only option, despite the fact that there is demonstrably not a universal need for such a model in all of South Africa's metropolitan areas.

It is only fair to conclude that the institutional proposals for metropolitan areas in the White Paper are not the end product of a transparent and accountable consultation process, but more the product of a politically determined process, which has overruled numerous conflicting submissions without an adequate response.  The White Paper fails to adequate distinguish between the successful and unsuccessful implementation and application of the present two-tier system, and similarly fails to account for the reasons for relative success or failure.  Instead, it builds its case on the premise that worst practice in non-metro and two-tier systems is the norm, and that the mega-city is thus the only institutional mechanism to remedy these failings.

Durban, for example, must toe a line which is not inspired by the interests of stakeholders, or of good governance, but of ANC party ideology.  And as an aside, if the mega-city is so fantastic, why did ANC councillors in the Durban Metro reject it?  It sounds as if the centralists among the top ANC hierarchy are once again imposing their will on their rank and file.  I suggest the ANC change its election logo to, "The people shall be governed, whether they like it or not".

In Johannesburg, the difficulties of governance in that metropolitan centre is blamed on the two-tier system, rather than its implementation.  But one does not require a metropolitan mega-city to resolve the problem.  In reality, the failure of Johannesburg has less to do with the system of Local Government, than it has on the way political parties operate within that system.

For the IFP, the problems with the mega-city option are summarised as follows:

1.	The mega-city is not necessary to resolve the difficulties of transformation in all metropolitan areas.  It may work in certain instances, although there is no guarantee of this, but by the same token, other types of Local Government may work just as well.

2.	Whilst the White Paper may comply with the letter of the Constitution, it does not comply with the spirit.  The constitutional provision for different types of Local Government to be set out in national legislation, clearly suggests greater variety from which provinces have the right to select.

3.	The mandatory mega-city prevents the interests of metropolitan Local Government being enhanced through the establishment of different types of municipalities whose success or failure informs the ongoing development of Local Government throughout the country.

4.	Through the establishment of the mega-city, metropolitan Local Government is overly centralised, because all Local Government powers and functions are located within the single metropolitan Government.  There are no other councils.

5.	The mega-city model weakens the role of political opposition in Local Government.  While decentralisation may take place, it can always be revoked by the metro council, or alternatively, there may be no decentralisation at all.  A metro can thus use the mega-city model to suit a political agenda.  Given that within a two-tier metropolitan area, there may well be local councils controlled by different political parties, the mega-city option will result in opposition parties, presently controlling one or more local councils, having no governmental power.  At best, they may exercise administrative functions.

6.	Even though it is possible for the metro council to devolve functions to an opposition controlled substructure, the metro has the power to determine substructure boundaries in a manner which suits its own political agenda.  In other words, in a manner that negates the possibility of opposition control.  This is because substructure boundaries are not determined by an independent authority, but may be manipulated to obtain the outcome most desirable by the party controlling the metro.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Two minutes.

MISS B BARRETT:  
	
7.	The proposed number of councillors for a mega-city's metro is such that each councillor is required to serve a very large constituency, often significantly larger than an electorate responsible for electing a representative to Parliament.  This is anomalous, for if Local Government is to be truly local, this scenario is likely to create even further distance between councillors and the electorate than is presently the case.

8.	The size of the mega-city is such that it could well become less, rather than more efficient.  International experience suggests that municipalities become proportionately more expensive to run over the 50 000 population mark.  In light of the present budget constraints, a cheaper, rather than a more expensive model of Local Government must be considered.

I am not an expert on Local Government, but when I was presented with the arguments for and against the mega-city, it became clear that the mega-city option is not the answer to all ills in Local Government.  The provincial allocations to local authorities are decreasing significantly every year, so whatever model is proposed to manage the metropolitan centres of our country, these must be chosen on the basis of efficiency and cost effectiveness, not political expediency.

With that I would like to support the vote, and commend our Minister.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Miss Barrett.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Bhengu, for eight minutes.

MR G E BHENGU:  Mr Chairman, sir, members of Parliament.  I will speak on the debate of the Portfolio of Housing.  This is one of the issues that really touches my heart when I talk of Housing.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  We are still on the Local Government vote, hon member.

MR V C XABA:  On a point of order, Mr Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, can we hear, Mr Xaba.

MR V C XABA:.  [It seems as if the hon member is using the wrong speech in a wrong debate.  We are not talking about housing].

AN HON MEMBER:  Point of order, Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear the point of order.

AN HON MEMBER:  [The Chairperson had already said that it is housing].

THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I have corrected the hon member.  I believe that he will continue with his speech.  The hon member can proceed with his speech].

MR G E BHENGU:  Ja, that was arranged in the morning.  We had a caucus in the morning, yes.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS AND LAUGHTER

MR G E BHENGU:  We had a caucus in the morning.  Thank you.  So, Chairperson, it really hurts me as a person who stays with the people that are suffering because they have no homes.

THE CHAIRPERSON  [The hon member has one minute].

MR G E BHENGU: THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hom members time is up.

MR G E BHENGU:  So all I want to say sir, is that we have to get together, roll up our sleeves kusetshenzelwe abantu, siyeke ngempela lento eyayishiwo umngani wami laphana we-PAC 

THE CHAIRPERSON:. [We request that the hon member takes his place].

MR G E BHENGU: Just go along and ~iqhubeke~~iyephambili~Thank you sir. 

TRANSLATION:  I remember, Chairperson, I remember, hon House, that when I was a small boy, I nearly died.  We were walking as young boys, young men and young girls, going to ~Inkosi~ A J Luthuli, looking for houses at central, as he was a person who fought for the people until his death.  In that I am saying the issue of housing was involved.

From there we were moved from Umkhumbane - moved by the Corporation and deserted at KwaMashu.  When we arrived at KwaMashu, we were given houses.  It was said that those who had R4 should pay that as deposit.  Those who did not have the money had to move to one side, whereby some were taken to D at Maplangweni, wooden structures.  And from there, others were moved to L, and up until today they are rotting there.

This is painful, Chairperson, that these things that are happening are taking place in front of us as public servants.  It is time now that something is done about housing.  Something must be done about housing.  

This time there is this fortunate contribution which we call subsidy.  It was said here is free housing.  Everybody goes around talking about subsidy, subsidy.  Even there, our people have not received anything.  In our residential areas at Lindelani, L-Section, D-Section, informal settlements, K-Section, at informal settlements, all to find that everything we attempt to do does not materialise.  

I decided that, as there is going to be debate today, I will mention this so that the world and the leaders must know we are staying in a very problematic area.

Therefore when you talk of housing I want to know, are we going to stand up and do something about it.  Our people are suffering, our people are suffering.  They need to be assisted.

Therefore, if God permits, as we have acknowledged that we are leaders of the people, it will be so.  I must thank you all.

One day when Mr Mkhwanazi of the PAC was talking here, when he rose and there was some noise, he said, "No, no, do not make a noise.  Do not fight.  Help the people."  In fact there was silence when the old man warned it was so.

Those are the things we want.  Let us co-operate so that the people's needs can be met, so that people can truly unite as sisters, brothers, wives, (if it is your wife), girlfriend, (if it is your girlfriend), and work and perform the functions.

So why am I saying all this, sir is that the problem is enormous  in housing.  If you agree and the Government agrees, we will do great things and wonders.  As we are here, people are waiting.  They are watching to see if there will be houses.  As Parliament is in session, will there be houses.  But there is a promise in the Minister's speech.  There is a promise that something will be happening.  The budget is not bad, but it is not enough.  The budget is not bad but we hope that something will happen.

I want to say, Chairperson, that in my life I was sent to work for the people.  I am the servant of the people.

KwaMashu has a very large population, I do have some colleagues across there from KwaMashu to unite and talk with the leaders and talk to solve black people's problems.

Irrespective of whether you are ANC or whatever.  All along I was hoping that by coming here, I was here to help my brothers, because my brothers across there are the ones who complain the most about repression.  Then it should not be them who become oppressors like those men, because they are the ones who suspected that, no, they are handling us with cruelty from which we can never escape.

I would like, hon House, that in all our prayers we unite and become one regarding the poverty of our people, whom we are helping, whom we know, and with whom we live.

~Inkosi~ A J Luthuli fought for human rights, and housing is a human right.  I remember ~Inkosi~ A J Luthuli saying we should earn a pound.  He fought for the pound.  He fought until he was sweating and we eventually got the pound and we exceeded that.

Even now, let it be so, because leaders can meet, talk and laugh nicely as ~Inkosi~ Luthuli fought.  I remember the leader of the IFP.  It was difficult that day when our ~Inkosi~ Luthuli departed.  People wondered as to who will talk at ~Inkosi~ Luthuli's funeral.  Suddenly, we heard the roaring voice of ~Inkosi~ Dr Buthelezi rising from beneath those trees in Groutville.  People were astounded, saying, "Isn't he afraid to talk because of the National Government?"  

So Dr M G Buthelezi spoke so well and everybody admired him.  So I am asking for that kind of unity.  I am requesting that unity because ~Inkosi~ A J Luthuli liked the leader of the IFP;  the leader of the IFP liked ~Inkosi~ Luthuli.

So all I want to say sir, is that we have to get together, roll up our sleeves and serve the people and stop this thing that was mentioned by my friend over there in the PAC.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON:.  Our next speaker will be the hon member Mr Bhamjee, who will address the House for six minutes.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Mr Chairperson, I take this opportunity of welcoming the Minister's budget speech, and also for the information that was supplied to us before the time.  However, the Minister's input on the White Paper forces me to focus on his introductory comments, as far as the White Paper is concerned.

MR J H JEFFERY:  His misguided input.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  I think you are correct, my hon John Jeffery.  The hon Minister's comments on the White Paper for Local Government, as well as the submission to the Pietermaritzburg Msunduzi TLC on the White Paper, were very revealing.  In fact, it exposed the Minister as being stuck in the past, a past in which the Provincial Government played big brother to Local Government.

Regardless of whether the Minister was in the NRP or the NP, the Minister pushed this line.  Now that the Minister is in the IFP, the Minister attempts to laud it over the ANC controlled local authorities.  In the process the hon Minister denied primary local authority to our rural and tribal areas by clinging to regional councils.

On the White Paper the hon Minister made a lot of noise about the process which is rich, coming from an autocrat.  The Minister has contributed very little to the debate, other than by beating the worn out provincial IFP drum.  In terms of the Constitution, we now have one Government, not three tiers of Government, and Local Government is a sphere in its own right.

AN HON MEMBER:  It is not a drum.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Does the Minister endorse this new constitutional dispensation?  If the hon Minister does, then he must get off the back of local authorities and practice co-operative Government.

For someone who has been involved in Local Government for many years, the Minister has said very little of any substance.  How do we transform Local Government into developmental authorities, so that employment and income levels, particularly of those still stuck in the townships which the Minister helped create, are improved?

How can the IFP Minister not support the upliftment of their own constituencies?  The Minister often sounds like an NP or even worse, an NP or a DP protector of privilege, rather than an IFP Minister determined to improve the lot of the poor people.

Given the Minister's recent statements and lack of input on the Local Government transformation, the time has come for the Minister to relinquish Local Government as well.  Concentrate on the finances and leave Local Government to the ANC.  The Province does not need a part-time Minister of Local Government, but a full-time one.  One who is in tune with our new Constitution, and the need for transformation.  The Minister does not fill the bill too well.

I trust the Minister will not respond in an uncultured and uncouth manner.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Bhamjee.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Edwards for six minutes.

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, the hon Minister Mr Miller is to be congratulated on his budget speech delivered today and clearly highlighting the problems as well as the successes of the Department of Local Government.

In particular, the hon Mr Miller must be applauded on his forthright condemnation of the implications of the Local Government White Paper, where the National Government, who claim to support democratic principles, proceeded autocratically, they are the autocratic ones, with plans to undermine the Provincial Government's competencies pertaining to Local Government.

The budget allocation for the financial year of only R801 million compared to last years R995 million, is a reduction of R194 million or some 25%.  This is somewhat disturbing.  It is more than disturbing, and especially the impact it will have in reducing funds available for the disadvantaged communities in TLCs and on regional councils, where Programmes 2 and 3 show marked decreases in essential funding.  Particularly in Programme 2, almost R100 million in funds reduction which were there to provide, establish and maintain Local Government structures.  I believe we are going to have a great difficulty in the future with small and emerging Local Governments.

It is disturbing to learn that because of unexplained reasons, differences between the PERSAL staff system and the FMS financial system, a shortfall in the personnel budget allocation of R62 million had resulted.  In almost every department in the Province there have been major problems and differences in reconciling personnel numbers.  There is still no certainty as to the correctness of personnel costs, the existence of ghost employees and a real resolve to attend to the problem.

I can remember last year in January we met with the hon Premier who said no one will be paid if they do not have a valid ID number in the PERSAL system, and there were some 30% who did not.  The problem has not been addressed, and I hope the Minister is listening to this.

We welcome the appointment of the hon Mr Miller as Minister of Finance, and trust that putting his other hat on, and his thinking cap on, urgent steps will be taken to eliminate fraud and error.  I believe that some obvious fraud still exists.

Over the past number of years there has been much criticism of the regional councils and old JSB structures.  The Joint Services Boards in KwaZulu-Natal were the first structures to take a much needed direction in the broadening of democracy and to bring all our people into the decision-making process of Government.

The hon Mr Miller will remember the strong opposition by business to pay another levy or tax which he had to sell as then a National Party MEC.  The success of the JSBs in providing development funds to areas where the greatest need existed is undoubted, and the consultation down to grass-roots level addressed many vital development projects which were really needed.

The success was also, that levies were collected for project expenditure and addressing survival needs was also done at a minimal administrative cost, certainly substantially lower than seen now in most local authority structures.  The costs of admin varied in the old JSBs between 5% and 13% of the income.  The JSBs ceased to exist on 26 June 1996, when they were transformed into seven regional councils.

With the transformation a number of changes resulted, some for the good, but some certainly for the worse.  First, Port Natal Ebodwe JSB, with by far the largest income of the JSBs, was running at an admin expenditure under 5% and was swallowed by the Durban Metropolitan Council.  With this the levies previously utilised to uplift the several tribal areas surrounding the Greater Durban area, some of which are now in the Metro, but many are not, disappeared into the Metro coffers.  How they are now being administered, and at what cost we do not know.  This is a bit of a mystery to us.  Perhaps we can be told.

The previous boundary of the JSB was so defined in order to distribute funds into the areas of greatest need, taking into account the interdependence of the urban and rural communities.  Based on demographics, the seven new regional councils were created.  The real problem, Mr Chairman, however, was that certain of the regional councils were not financially viable, it was obvious they were not going to be, because these did not have sufficient levy income.  So maybe the seven was too many and we should have stuck with five, or four.

The regional councils created had just too many councillors, as has happened in many local authorities elected under the new dispensation, and really it is a millstone around our neck.  I know people have to be educated in Government, but what has really happened?

The unfortunate result of the restructuring has been that administrative and overhead costs have risen dramatically, leaving far less funding available for projects identified by the councils and their community.  For example, and I thank the hon Mr Miller for providing information, although as he pointed out, the approval of the budgets of councils is now under the control of the national jurisdiction.  I read in the audit report on local authorities how long it is taking to get the budgets approved.  There seems to really be a problem with this.

Uthukela Regional JSB administration costs used to be some 15% of levy income.  They were one of the highest then.  They rose dramatically in this last year to 39,5% on dividing the JSB into two regional councils.

Indlovu Regional Council or JSB admin costs used to be about 8%.  It has risen to 16% and is still rising.  This region, while combining with East Griqualand, maintained the same proportion levy income to costs taken over.

Ugu Regional Council, the admin costs were high at 25% of income.  It has now risen to 41,8%.  The admin overhead is R5,7 million out of an income of R13,8.  Overall, the admin costs of all the JSBs, now RSCs has risen by 50%.  It is really unacceptable.  We have to look at a restructuring, a reduction in the councillors, a streamlining because those monies are there for projects that are needed for development.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR B V EDWARDS: (Whip):  Even more disturbing I believe is the politicisation of the councils which has made the administration and decision-making intolerable.  At times the rate of progress is worse than slow, it just does not happen.  Projects take months and over a year to get off the ground, because nobody in these councils agree.  It has become a political football.  Most councils are sitting with millions in their banks.  Before the regional council, recently one of the councillors told me that they had some R70 million in their bank and their annual income is about R50 million.  They are sitting with more than a year's levy income but they cannot spend it.  Something drastic has to be done in streamlining these councils.

With that I appeal to the Minister, and I know he is a man who thinks, to do something about this very real problem we have.  Thank you, Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Next to speak is the hon member Mr Dingila, for eight minutes.

MR T F DINGILA:  Ngiyabonga Mphathisihlalo.  I would like to start my debate by congratulating the Minister of Local Government for his continuous effort to highlight the problems prevailing within his Department.  Of course we know that most of the problems are caused by the National Government of not pumping sufficient money into the provinces.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR T F DINGILA:  Mr Chair, it is disheartening to hear our voters expressing their concerns regarding the unfulfilled promises that were made by the ANC Government before the 1994 elections.  It is really a joke to see the amount of money wasted by ANC Government grafting, planning, hiring consultants, using voter's money, enriching their own members who have been in exile, or in gaol and yet the people who have been living in the house of bondage are still suffering outside.

Mr Chairman, where on earth have you ever seen a person who has been in gaol or in exile and within four years he is a millionaire?  That is a joke.  This makes the job for the IFP easier in preparing for the next elections in 1999, because people now know who is the true, trustworthy, reliable and lastly, God-loving leader.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Can I ask the hon member if he will take a question?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon member take a question?

MR T F DINGILA:  If you could give me 10 minutes, I will take the question.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  That says, not now. 

MR J H JEFFERY:  Will he take it at the end?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon member please proceed.

MR T F DINGILA:  Thank you, Mr Chairman. TRANSLATION:  Indeed, I am talking about a leader who did not tell lies, who said he will not accept that this country is free before Dr Mandela is released from prison.  Who questioned where the money will come from to build houses, to feed children free of charge, for free abortions, for freeing prisoners who need to be executed but are kept in prison.  This is a good opportunity that the ANC has given us by exposing their failure to govern while in power.  T/E

The hon member Dr Sutcliffe, who is the Local Government commissar, talked about Durban ...

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR T F DINGILA:  He talked about Durban as rated amongst the best cities in the world on administration and management.  Sir, if what I heard is what he meant, then Mr Commissar is preaching the gospel of lies, propaganda and trash to his party.  In reality, we should be commending the Durban business people, mostly the Indians and whites, who have persevered through difficult blows of the ANC saying: "Burn everything that you have got.  The ANC will give new houses and a lot of money to build factories".

Were it not for these people whom I have mentioned, Durban could have been like the Isithebe industrial area that has been ruined by the ANC/COSATU/SACP's ruthless and destructive structures which has caused the economy of this country to collapse.

It is a pity, sir, that hon member Roy Ainslie is not in the chamber.  I was amazed yesterday to hear him saying Ndwedwe has developed well. [Oh I am puzzled.  I am still puzzled].  How could he say that?

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR T F DINGILA:  Really, I was amazed.  This is the second time that Mr Ainslie has spoken about Ndwedwe within a period of 10 years.  In 1988 he did the same.  We confronted him in 1988 in Pinetown, when he said that the children from the Ndwedwe area were saying that the ~Amakhosi~ of Ndwedwe were chasing them out of the area.  I asked the hon member whether he knew Ndwedwe?  How many ~Amakhosi~ did we have in Ndwedwe?  Then he said three ~Amakhosi~s.  We corrected that.  Then we said please, go and call those children who have said they are being chased out of Ndwedwe by ~Amakhosi~.  Eventually he came back and said that he was sorry, the children had lied to him.

This time, I do not know where he gets his information that Ndwedwe is properly developed now, because we are still suffering.  People still lack development in the area.  He even mentioned the name of my colleague, hon member Mr D P Mfayela.  I know he is lying.  I do not think he found out from him about Ndwedwe.  If he had done so, my colleague would not have lied and said that there was much development. The little development that is taking place in Ndwedwe was actually implemented by JSB structures long before the ANC took over.  So I do not know where he gets his information from.

AN HON MEMBER:  Ask the Reverend Sutcliffe.

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR T F DINGILA:  I hope he will once again say he is sorry, his children have also deceived him.  Mr Chairman, the ANC led Government is not at all interested in putting Government money where their mouth is.

Lastly, THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR T F DINGILA: THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is up.

MR T F DINGILA: 
TRANSLATION:  I want to say that this law, the one which is about ~Amakhosi~, excluding them from Local Government, we will not accept it.  We will not accept it.  We read it properly and we know that it is the aim of the ANC to ignore ~Amakhosi~, because, starting from the top, they want to coddle certain people and pacify them and then end up saying, "No, you are not there."

~Amakhosi~ overcame the first Government which ruled after the defeat of our people.  Again they overcame the Afrikaner Government and even this ANC one which loathes ~Amakhosi~ will not succeed.  It has already failed, if that is not so, it will fail.

If Chief Mlaba is an ~Inkosi~ and not a chief, he should start today to cross over to this side where the ~Amakhosi~ are seated.  He should not deceive the nation of his forefathers because the Thongas will ask him why he misused Ubukhosi of the Ximba people.

But then, if the hon member, Chief Mlaba, does not do that, his nation will rise against him because Ubukhosi does not belong to Chief Mlaba, but it belongs to the people of the nation of the Mlaba people and the ~Inkosi~ of the Mlaba people.  There goes the KwaZulu democracy.

Democracy did not come with the advent of white people in KwaZulu.  Democracy was known in ancient times.  ~Amakhosi~ ruled as there is a president in charge.  In KwaZulu, ~Amakhosi~ were in charge.  That has been around for a long time.  It is not a novelty.

There is a problem in Local Government in the Uthungulu Regional Council.  When they try to contact the Department of our hon and respectable Mr Msholozi, the departmental staff says that tourism in rural areas does not concern their department; the Department of Local Government is supposed to deal with that.  But these departments have to liaise with each other.  Maybe if our hon Msholozi is not aware of this, he should contact Uthungulu and hear about this matter.  I am pleased.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Dr Sutcliffe to address the House for eight minutes.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Thank you, Chair.  As I look around this House I note that 90% of the members of this Provincial Legislature live in Local Governments which presently are led by the ANC.  Every one of those Local Governments in this Province has got a proud delivery record, and we can place on record what it is.  More than 400 000 people have got water today in those urban areas who never had water in 1994.  The majority of the houses that are produced, and we will hear about those in the next budget vote today, have been produced in those TLCs and in the metro area.  Over 90% of those.  If you look at the issue of electricity connections in this Province, again you would find the same issue here.

This issue is very clear.  Democratically elected Local Government will ensure that we can deliver to people where it is needed.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we allow the hon member Mr Mzobe.

MR M R MZOBE:  On a point of correction, Mr Chairman.  I would like to correct the hon Dr Sutcliffe.  We had water long before the 1994 elections through the JSBs.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon Dr Sutcliffe may proceed.

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Chair, I think what this indicates is that, and I address myself to the Deputy Whip of the IFP, you should spend some time teaching the Premier and all the members on your side of the House that we have such a thing called Rules in this House.  It is clear to me that from the Premier's comments earlier today to others in your party they have not the foggiest what these Rules are.  I would really urge that the Whips start earning their salaries by teaching the hon members on that side of the House what the Rules actually mean.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  On the issues of connections, over 400 000 people have water connections.  More than half a million have received electricity connections.  Yes, there were some before.  I am saying since 1994 in those local authorities that we are talking about.  In local authorities there are a number of characteristics.

Firstly, where there is an elected council operating.  In rural areas there are no elected councils there.  Let us not romanticise rural areas.  I will certainly concur with the hon Dingila's comments earlier, that people living in rural areas in this Province are still living in disgraceful conditions, and the way you will resolve those issues is not by just simply sitting back and saying: "We want an ~Amakhosi~ system, and that will solve the Local Government issues".  The way you will solve it is through integrated development plans, where elected community leaders can sit down and debate and discuss, together with traditional leaders, together with business people, together with a whole range of civil society interests, and that is how you will begin to get that sustainable development.  You will not get that sustainable development by the hon Constance Mkhize simply saying: "Oh look at this, the rural areas.  Yea, we won those".  You will get it through ensuring there is elected Local Government where there can be accountability in that.  I would urge the IFP to start putting some concrete proposals on this table.

We have heard for four years now the IFP's model for rural Local Government is there.  Any student, any person who reads those documents that have been submitted from Roelf Meyer to Valli Moosa and the like, will realise those documents say nothing.  They say absolutely nothing about ensuring that there will be delivery in those areas, that there will be accountable Local Government in those areas.  They say nothing.  I am urging my colleagues on the other side, let us begin that debate.  Let us talk about how we can ensure that we will bring delivery throughout our Province so that it is not so skewed that only in the urban areas of our Province we have got development, because that development has come through local communities electing local leadership, who ensure that they are accountable to the people for the development initiatives that come about.  That is how it will occur, and I would really urge members on that side to deal with it.

The second issue I want to deal with and it is a fairly quick issue, is just to comment on this research task team that I am heading.  I do not have any companies, and have not tendered for any projects anywhere.  I have been appointed by the National Minister to lead a national team of researchers, by the National Minister, to simply look at the issue of metropolitan governance in South Africa.  It has a limited time frame.  Next week the report will be ready.  I would hope hon members in this House will all get a copy of that report, read it and engage with it.  So it is purely a short term exercise to deal with four metropolitan areas in South Africa, namely Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, to look at the current situation, and to particularly look at White Paper issues arising out of there.  That report will be available, as I say, in about 10 days time.

The last comments I would really wish to make is in the next few months, I hope the hon MEC will respond, that we do begin to engage, even in this whole House, on what our real plans are for Local Government in those areas which do not have Local Government.  Regional councils cannot perform much more than simply providing a creche here, a community hall there and a bit of tarred road here.  They cannot deal with the things that people really need.  Children who need electricity, because if they do not have electricity they cannot ensure that they are extending their daylight hours.  It means that people in fact are confined to collecting firewood and the like.  We need to say, what our plan is for not only development, for us to ensure that there is elected Local Government in this Province.

The issue of boundary demarcation is going to be much less politicised now, because of the Finance Department proposals, which say that where there are poor people that is where National Government resources should be targeted, so that resources will flow primarily from National Government towards rural and poor areas.  In fact, if you look at this document, in KwaZulu-Natal all the regional council areas will benefit, all the smaller TLCs will benefit, and yes, the metro in six or seven years time will not benefit as much as it is benefitting today.  That is correct.  You need to begin to target where poor people live so that the demarcation of Local Government, the actual boundaries, as long as they are not dividing communities, will become much less politicised.  But we should start sitting around and debating.  Should we have a regional council from Tugela to Mozambique, for example?  Should we have one, the Indlovu, that reaches right up into the East Griqualand area from Kranskop?  Or do we require district councils, regional councils that are smaller, that can begin to deliver those services in a much more localised way?  Let us debate those issues, because those are issues ultimately what the people of this Province require.  Thank you, sir.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Oh, I was still giving you one minute, but thanks, Dr Sutcliffe.  Lastly, I wish to call upon the hon Minister to reply to the debate.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Mr Chairman, I think I would like to start, lest he should leave the House, by responding to the hon Mr Bhamjee.  I would start by saying that if he and I were to play a soccer match, one against the other, he would not attempt to score a goal, he would attempt to kick me on the shins, if not in a more severe place.

AN HON MEMBER:  What if you are in boxing.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  What I am trying to say, is that one of the things I certainly have always tried to do, and many others in this House on both sides also do it, is that we concentrate on playing the ball not the man.  We argue the issue, and we can still go and have a cup of tea together afterwards.  We do not have to resort to personal insult to make a point.  However, I will close that issue by simply saying that if you have a nasty, twisted, bigoted attitude about life, then you cannot help saying nasty, twisted, bigoted things about other people.  I will leave it at that.  It is not really for me to dignify that particular contribution any further.

What I want to say, sir, and I want to acknowledge this, is that the hon member Dr Sutcliffe, as the Chairman of the Portfolio Committee with which I deal, certainly has the capacity to play the ball not the man.  As a result we get into many intense and productive arguments, discussions and exchanges of views on this whole issue.  I want to respond immediately to a challenge that he put out in his final contribution this afternoon, about the need to engage on issues such as the form of rural Local Government and so on.  He knows full well that this is a challenge to which he will get a meaningful and enthusiastic response, certainly from me and from the team that is here this afternoon, because here we are talking as Local Government practitioners, as distinct from trying to score petty little points one from the other.  That is indeed a challenge that is a worthy one, and one which will be accepted.

I do want to also place on record my thanks to Dr Sutcliffe for the comments on the Department and on the relationship between the Portfolio Committee, the Ministry and the Department.  It takes two to tango, and therefore it must be acknowledged here today that he and his Committee have also played an important role in creating such a relationship.  It is a relationship in which one can argue and differ vehemently, but never to the extent that we begin to demean each other at a personal level.

I want to comment very briefly on the role of the IEC and the Demarcation Board, and the importance of these bodies being seen to be independent.  I think it is right and proper that there should be an independent electoral commission.  I have no argument with that.  What I also think is right and proper, however, is that if they are appointed to do the job then they must do the whole job, and they must not think that having indicated quite clearly that the provinces, for example, have no role to play then to try and get the provinces to do all the dirty work on their behalf.  If you are independent and you are going to do a job, then by all means do it.

Likewise, I am concerned about the National Demarcation Board.  I actually thought, and until I was given an interpretation of the Constitution which indicated that this was not possible, I believed that a Demarcation Board, appointed as we originally did in this Province, two members by agreement nominated by the national, two by the Province, two by organised Local Government, responsible to this Legislature and this Executive could have done a perfectly good demarcation job in this particular Province.  We did it once before, we can do it once again.  Demarcation is, after all, by the very nature of things, a compromise decision.  Nobody can achieve the perfect way of demarcating, but at the end of the day we came out with something that has not worked too badly.

I am quite flattered to be called Mega-City Miller.  But, Mr Chairman, may I just correct it.  You should call me Metropolitan Miller, not Mega-City Miller.  What we have actually proven in Durban is that by flexibility and negotiation, due to initiatives which did not emanate on that side of the House but initiatives that emanated on this side of the House,  Metropolitan Government can work.  It was this side of the House that took the lead and said reticulation of water to everyone should be done by the metro and that reticulation of electricity will be undertaken by the metro.  In fact, if you want to record history correctly, you will find that the metropolitisation of such services had started long before.  It is a tradition in KZN.  So I have no gripe whatsoever with the fact that 75% of the budget in the metropolitan area of Durban is controlled by the metropolitan council.  They control the huge trading undertakings.  It is proper that this should be the case.  But, in the process we have not taken away the democratic right of the people in the substructures.  They do elect their councils.  They do decide who mows their pavements.  They do determine their own rates base, and we even there had a technique whereby we could equalise rates through the use of the precept.  I am very happy that there should be praise for the Durban Metropolitan Authority, because we were major players in determining how that metropolitan authority should work.

Perhaps it would be useful just to deal with the rest of Dr Sutcliffe's contribution, not because I want to hone in on him, but because while my mind is thinking about him, and he is sitting opposite me looking at me like that, it serves to concentrate the mind.  I think it is a little disingenuous for the hon member to actually claim that the houses that have been delivered in the metro, and all other TLCs, the water connections and everything, are all as a result of the ANC leadership.  It really is a little disingenuous.  The reality in fact is, is that the vast majority of the houses exist because of a superb Housing Board and a superb approach by the whole housing initiative, which my colleague will talk about shortly.

I also want to say that it is because the Province has delivered, on the RDP allocations to this Province and every cent has been properly spent that we can claim great progress in water connections and all such things.  Let us be generous and acknowledge that everybody played a role.  Certainly, I can give you examples of ANC led councils which are in an appalling situation right now, as are councils led by other political parties as well.  We must just acknowledge that fact.

If I can go back and thank the hon Mr Aulsebrook for his contribution, and his compliments to the Department.  In particular too, I would like to thank the hon Miss Buthelezi.  She spoke on developmental Local Government and the social development of communities, and I have no disagreement or argument with that.  It must be an intrinsic underlying principle in the whole issue of Local Government.

The hon member Mr Volker.  I think it was correct for him to emphasise that Local Government means taking decisions locally.  This is something we tend to forget.  Also of course the emphasis on financial discipline, for without financial discipline and financial good governance, Local Government is doomed.

The hon Mrs Mkhize was quite right of course when she lampooned the statement that the people must govern, because of course, the very people that are saying the people must govern, do not know how to deal with the fact that the people who are governing, have remembered that they were taught not to pay for the services that they receive.

~Inkosi~ Mlaba spoke of the ANC's proud record vis-a-vis the ~Amakhosi~.  I am sure that he has personally received fabulous treatment from the ANC, as indicated by the place where he sits in the hierarchy of things opposite us here.  What needs to be asked, sir, the real question he has to answer, is how much longer can he and his community be a non-rate paying parasite on the ratepayers of the Greater Durban area.  That is what he has really got to answer.  At the moment of course it is politic to be able to show that he and his particular community benefit from being inside the metro, but at what cost nobody has been able to tell us yet.

The hon Mr Burrows posed some interesting questions.  I will leave the ones that he posed to Dr Sutcliffe for Dr Sutcliffe either to have answered or answer more fully at a later stage.  I do not think that has got anything to do with me, save that I say that in Dr Sutcliffe's present job that he has been given, it is of course necessary for us to interact with him as a Department, which we have done.

In regard to the Ingonyama Trust Act, I think this is a very valid question.  The Act was signed into law in April 1997.  It is now very nearly June 1998.  It still has not come into force and effect.  The latest information I have is that we await an interview with His Majesty the King by the Minister of Land Affairs, the Provincial Minister for Traditional Affairs and the Premier in regard to getting His Majesty the King's approval to the eight members which have been agreed on by the National Government and the Provincial Government, as to constitute the Board of the Ingonyama Trust.  It is a matter of huge concern to us in Local Government that this matter lingers on the way it has.  It has rates implications, it has development implications.  It has implications in regard to the spending of money on land which does not belong to you.  The public open spaces, the roads, and the like in the R293 towns still belong to the Ingonyama.  I was briefed by Minister Derek Hanekom, concerning our attempt to get the High Court to give us a declaratory order as to the definition of an owner for purposes of paying rates.  In this regard, if the holder of a deed of grant is deemed to be an owner for purposes of paying rates, then the holder of the deed of grant will pay the rates.  But, if he is not deemed to be the owner, the question arises who is the owner.  The question then arises as to who would be responsible for the rates.  Mr Hanekom has been warned in a very friendly and pleasant way, (I did not kick him on the shin), I said to him that there is a R47 million bill which could be coming his way as the person who is responsible for the administration of the Ingonyama Trust Act.

The question was also asked as to Local Government elections.  All I can say, sir, is that the latest information I have is that the Local Government elections in KwaZulu-Natal will take place in 2000, some time after June in 2000.  There has been discussion, of which I have been part, which suggested that it might be in the country's interests to hold all the Local Government elections in the year 2000.  It would require a constitutional amendment to allow those that should be holding elections at the end of 1999 to do so in 2000.

The hon Ms Xulu made what I thought was a valid plea, that we should not politicise municipalities when we come to the provision of services.  What I am saying here too is that irrespective of who the councillor is, once he is elected in a ward or elected to serve a municipality, it is his duty in fact to serve all the people.  He/she must not say: "I serve only party A or party B".  And to the extent that Ms Xulu was pleading that ANC councillors should also remember they serve the whole community, I want to support her.  I just want to say of course, I understand fully that when she talks about the bush and things growing in the cemeteries and they cannot comfortably bury their people. People, you must therefore remember that the African National Congress comes from the wilderness.  They have now planted a forest on that side.  You see?  Yes].

The hon Mr Ngidi spoke about an unfinished story concerning legislation.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please!

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Mr Chairman, if he is concerned about a delay in legislation, and if in fact his concern was being pointed at the Province, (it was not clear whether he was pointing it at the Province or pointing it elsewhere), he must look to his Constitution and to his White Paper for that very delay.  The latest legal information we have is that it would be most unwise to produce any kind of legislation until we have seen what the content of legislation is to be, that is produced nationally.  That is a legal point of view.

MR J H JEFFERY:  INTERJECTION.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  The hon Mr JJ Jeffery, I did not quite hear what he said there, so I will not respond.  The interesting thing for the information of the hon member is that senior counsel's legal opinion, and the opinion of the said person to whom he is referring, happened to coincide.  [LAUGHTER]

The hon Mrs Galea dealt with Alamein Avenue and all the problems associated therewith.  That was, if you like, local Local Government issues.  I was quite amused when the hon Mr Rajbansi responded and he made his clear call, which I support obviously, for the elimination of all acts of racism.  Nobody in this chamber, to the best of my knowledge, would not support such a call.  The interesting thing is that the hon Raj's very existence is based on actually pushing a racial wheelbarrow because the Minority Front unashamedly has a racial base to it, and promotes a racial point of view.

MR A RAJBANSI:  On a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear the point of order from Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  The Premier said at the City Hall, you know we want to move away from the Zulu party.  So that is the way we are doing it.  I do not apologise for it.  I am going for the Indian vote whether anybody likes it or not.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I do not think that is a point of order, Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  But I made my point.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon Minister may proceed.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  I hope you will rule him out of order, Mr Chairman, because he was merely confirming what I said.  Let me say that in this particular House it is very interesting as we get lectured, all of us at some time or another, there is no man or woman in this House that packs quite the same level of self-confidence that is packed by Mr Rajbansi.

AN HON MEMBER:  The hon.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Oh yes indeed, the hon.  The hon Miss Barrett made a contribution on the whole issue of the mega-city debate and added intellectual substance to the debate that we have been having on this whole issue, for which I thank her.

The hon colleague Mr Bhengu spoke on housing.  Unfortunately, the Minister of Housing was not here to listen to it.  All I can say to the hon Mr Bhengu is that I will attempt to brief the Minister here so that in the correct debate the situation can be reflected.

AN HON MEMBER:  Wrong speech.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order! Order please! Order please!

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  The hon Mr Edwards, in his inimitable financial way, dealt with the impact of the budget.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please! 

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  And the decrease on essential funding.  I want to say that I share his views on the need for funding to fund development needs.  I also share his views in regard to the need to keep administrative expenditure as a proportion of total expenditure as low as possible.  I would just like to draw to the hon Mr Edwards' attention of course, that one of the distorting features of the new regional council set up, when compared to the old JSBs, was the fact that we have had extracted from the family of regional councils, the Durban Metro, and none of the levies generated in the economic heartland of our Province can be used for rural areas at all any more.  I think in the future when we engage in this debate we are actually going to have to talk about some mechanism where surrounding rural areas, certainly the Ilembe Regional Council should be able to tap into the levy income of the Durban Metro in order to level the financial playing fields as far as those institutions are concerned.

Finally, sir, I want to say, because I have dealt already with the summing up of Dr Sutcliffe, I thank my colleague Mr Dingila for his contribution.  He too dealt with the problems in rural areas.  He too dealt with the fact that rural area problems are not going to be solved if we ignore the traditional structures in rural areas, and the traditional leadership, and I must say that I concur with that view.

In concluding, Mr Chairman, may I thank each and every member who participated in this debate.  May I thank particularly those members who actually filled their seats and were present to hear the debate.  I thank everyone for their support.  I thank you for the complimentary things that were said.  I thank you for the contributions made, and I even thank those that kicked me on the shin.  Thank you very much.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

AN HON MEMBER:  Well said.  Well done.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  That brings us to the end of this debate.  We are not going to vote on this, as with all the other votes.  We will vote right at the end of the Committee Stage of this House.  We are going to move on to the next vote, that is vote 8B, that is Housing.  I wish to call upon the hon Minister of Housing, Mr Singh, to address the House.

KWAZULU-NATAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1998.

VOTE 8B:  DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING.
 
MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.

INTRODUCTION

Mr Chairman, hon colleagues in the House.  Colleagues would know that I have been in the saddle of the Housing Portfolio for six weeks, and I use the word "saddle" advisedly since my hon colleague here is now in charge of horse racing and betting.  Please allow me at the outset, Mr Chairman, to thank the Premier very sincerely for having entrusted me with this very exciting and challenging portfolio.  I am fully aware of the enormity of the task ahead, and I am fully committed to the challenge facing my Department: and that is to ensure that affordable housing at scale is delivered within the current budgetary constraints.  I also wish to congratulate my colleague, Mr Peter Miller, on the excellent way he handled this portfolio.  I am sure all members of this House will agree that Mr Miller's exemplary dedication to his task is highly valued.

MR J H JEFFERY:  Did Mr Miller write the speech?

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  I am capable of doing that on my own, JJ, not like your speech which is written by the others around you.  Six weeks in office have allowed me enough time to come to grips with the challenges facing this Province and the country as a whole to secure affordable housing for the millions of homeless people within a reasonable period.  Housing, Mr Chairman, is a concurrent national and provincial competence, but I dare say these two spheres of Government alone will not be able to eradicate the housing backlog.  Like the old traditional cooking pot which requires three legs to stand on, we need to bring on board the third, very vital partner, namely municipalities.  There is no doubt that housing needs can best be identified and satisfied at this level of Government.  All that is necessary, is to empower municipalities to perform this function.

POLICIES WHICH PROMOTE HOUSING

Mr Chairman, I will just touch briefly on some of the policies which are in place that promote housing and housing delivery.  In terms of section 156(4) of the Constitution, provision is made for the assignment of a national or provincial function, such as housing, to a municipality, provided that:

1.	Agreement is reached that the function would most effectively be administered locally by the municipality concerned; and
2.	That the municipality has the capacity to administer the function.

These constitutional provisions are backed by the Local Government Transitional Act, 1993, as well as the provisions of the Housing Act, 1997.  The latter, which is the Housing Act, 1997, has actually taken the harnessing of municipalities in housing a step further by a number of policy shifts.  These are:

1.	ACCREDITATION OF MUNICIPALITIES TO ADMINISTER HOUSING PROGRAMMES

	Accredited municipalities will be placed in a position to receive housing project applications, approve such applications, and manage housing subsidy funds.  Municipalities acting as developers themselves will, however, still need to get their projects approved by the Provincial Housing Development Board in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

2.	EXTINGUISHED NATIONAL HOUSING LOANS

	The second policy which promotes housing is the recent extinguishing of national housing loans.  In terms of the Housing Act, 1997, housing loans owed by municipalities to the National Housing Board were extinguished on 1 April 1998.  Individual families who acquired homes built from these loans on an instalment basis will, however, have to continue honouring their obligations to the municipality concerned in terms of their instalments or their rentals.

	Funds generated from the sale or letting of housing stock must be paid into a separate operating account, created by the municipality for this purpose, and may be withdrawn only for housing and related purposes.  My Housing Branch is tasked with the responsibility of auditing this operational account to ensure that these funds are used by municipalities solely for housing purposes.

3.	NATIONAL HOUSING BOARD ASSETS

	Housing stock owned by the former National Housing Board was transferred in ownership on 1 April 1998 to the Provincial Housing Development Board.  This stock will therefore be administered by our Provincial Housing Development Board.  At a future date, to be determined by the National Minister and myself, ownership in the housing stock will be transferred to the municipalities concerned.

4.	TRANSFER OF MONEY

	The last policy matter is the one of the transfer of money.  The Housing Act of 1997 also provides for the transfer of funds which stand to the credit of or are payable to: a community facility account, a rent reserve fund, or a maintenance and renewal fund, into a separate operating account created by a municipality.

To my mind, Mr Chairman, colleagues, these policy shifts create new opportunities to generate funds at municipal level in order to finance future housing projects.

In order to promote housing, it is necessary from time to time to change existing policies.  One such recent change affects the Discount Benefit Scheme.  This Scheme previously applied only to areas that were administered by the ex-Own Affairs Administrations.  The current policy was reviewed to cater also for the sale of properties in areas that formerly fell under the jurisdiction of the Natal Provincial Administration and the KwaZulu Government.  I shall deal in more detail with my Department's response to this development later in the speech.

Towards the end of last year, changes in the subsidy bands resulted in the first two bands being merged.  Those beneficiaries earning within the bracket from nothing to R1 500 qualify for the maximum subsidy of R15 000.  In addition to Individual Subsidies and Project Linked Subsidies, the Implementation Manual provides for Institutional Subsidies and the People's Process Subsidies.

I am pleased to announce to this House that a rural housing subsidy policy is in a stage of finalisation.  This subsidy also aims at addressing housing needs in ~Amakhosi~ areas.  I have a very soft spot, Mr Chairman, for these traditional areas, because up to now they have been denied Government assistance in housing as a result of a lack of suitable policies, and policy instruments.  Housing delivery, therefore, tended to be urban biased, and I think that is where Dr Sutcliffe gets his statistics from.  When the final policy on rural housing is ready for implementation, I will ask hon colleagues in this House, and in the House of Traditional Leaders to join hands with me in promoting housing vigorously in traditional areas.  Legally, the permission-to-occupy, the PTOs as we know them, certificates are now recognised as another form of land tenure by the Government, and can be used to access subsidies, which reduces the danger of ~Amakhosi~ losing their land.

Mr Chairman, I am aware of the concerns which exist about individual tenure on communally owned land.  Some people argue that once PTOs have been granted, individuals may choose to upgrade their rights to full ownership.  However, the possibility of upgrading land tenure rights already exists.  The new rural housing policy merely enables PTO holders to access subsidies without the prerequisite of individual ownership.  The PTO must, however, be registrable in one form or another.  This is what is being investigated at the moment.

Another piece of legislation that will have an impact on housing in our Province is the Ingonyama Trust Amendment Act of 1997, once it becomes functional.  We have heard from the hon Minister of Local Government what problems we have there.  In terms of this Act, ownership in land and housing stock situated in proclaimed towns of former KwaZulu vests in the municipality concerned.  At this moment, ownership vests in the Ingonyama Trust, while the administration of the housing stock is done either by my Department or a municipality acting as an agent for the Ingonyama Trust.

My Department is currently driving the sales campaign in former Proclamation R293 towns.  Once the Ingonyama Trust Act becomes functional, our role in these towns will decrease.  We will, however, continue to provide support to municipalities in the sales campaign, where this is required.

Mr Chairman, this morning we had a lively debate on the question of motions.  We spent almost 25 minutes talking about motions.  My view is that most of these motions that are presented get constipated in the corridors of Parliament.  It is for that reason that I will refer to three motions that were presented to this House by the hon member Mr Bhamjee, and the hon Chairman of the Portfolio Committee Mr Naicker, so that at least the House and the public at large are informed on the manner in which we are attending to these problems that were raised in those motions.

Mr Chairman, the hon Mr S V Naicker, Chairman of the Housing Portfolio Committee, raised the matter of sites for worship, and made certain policy recommendations.  The policy shifts to date have not affected these sites.  The sale of sites for religious purposes is still being treated favourably by the Government, as was the case in the past.  The purchase price itself is made up of two components: the cost price of the land, and the cost of services of adjoining sites.  Regarding the former, a special formula is applied whereby the cost of land zoned as a site for religious purposes is divided by the cost of usable land on that site, and multiplied by 15%.  The outcome is a Rand value per hectare.  With regard to the latter, a special formula is applied whereby the cost of services is divided by the extent of the residential land, and multiplied by 10%.  The result becomes value of serviced land per hectare.  The Rand value per hectare is then added to the value of the serviced land per hectare to produce the total cost of the site.  In other words, a site for religious purposes is sold at 15% of the total land cost plus 10% of the cost for services.

In the event of a shortage of sites for religious purposes, the competence to rezone available residential sites vests in the relevant municipality.  My Ministry and Department will be only too pleased to support such rezoning by local authorities, where a need exists.

Mr Chairman, action has also been taken with regard to the motions raised by the hon member Mr Bhamjee.  Mr Bhamjee put forward certain proposals about the regularisation of illegal subletting of houses in Copesville, and the issue of illegal squatting at Raisethorpe.  I am pleased to announce that a meeting was held on 20 May 1998 between myself, officials of my Department and the hon Mr Bhamjee.  I believe that the proposals have all been accommodated within the existing policy framework to the satisfaction of all concerned.

I will be releasing a press statement to that end, Mr Chairman, and essentially I will be requesting that all evictions in Copesville be stayed until such time as the contract formalisation process has been completed.  My housing officials are presently liaising with the Chief Magistrate to end the issue of court orders for eviction until such time that the contract formalisation process has been completed.  I sincerely advocate a participatory decision-making process, including the community committee to overcome the problems experienced at Copesville.  Strong armed tactics used to evict tenants, unscrupulous legal allocatees and other parties will be severely dealt with by the normal course of proceedings, including involvement by the South African Police Services.

Mr Chairman, on the issue of the invasion of provincial owned land in the Mountain Rise area.  I wish to inform the House that a security company has recently been appointed to curb any future invasion on housing land as this would impede future development.  As MEC for Housing, I impress upon the steering committee of the inland region to form joint ventures with the TLC to try and overcome these issues.

ORGANISATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

I now wish to turn to organisational arrangements.  My colleague the hon Peter Miller reported last year to this hon House the difficulties he had in providing suitable posts within the Housing Branch.  I am glad to report that all these problems are now behind us.  The post of Chief Director: Housing was approved and has been filled.  The three posts of Director: Housing were also approved and are in the process of being filled.  Two of these posts, in fact, have been filled, but due to administrative placements of the two incumbents elsewhere in my Department, the positions are still vacant.  Fresh submissions have been made to the Commission for the filling of the vacant posts.

The Chief Directorate: Land, Planning and Survey, and the Chief Directorate: Engineering Services crossed floors last year respectively to the Local Government Branch and the Housing Branch.  The Chief Directorate: Engineering Services, was renamed Chief Directorate: Technical Services and was assigned the added responsibilities of project management for housing and the reconstruction and development projects.  These changes became necessary because of the diminishing role my Department played in the provision and maintenance of engineering services, since these functions have been transferred to the municipalities concerned.  Greater emphasis is now being placed on the monitoring of housing projects in order to ensure quality and value for money.

Mr Chairman, this brings me to another point.  It is not only the Housing Branch which makes things happen.  In this Province, we are blessed with a very dedicated Housing Portfolio Committee under the Chairmanship of the hon Mr S V Naicker.  The Chairman and members play, and have played a very constructive role in promoting housing delivery.  They have adopted a "hands-on" approach by tackling whatever obstructs housing projects in their respective residential areas, by visiting, as a Committee, municipalities and developers where projects are taking place, and by keeping my Ministry and Housing Branch abreast of what is happening out there all the time.  My Ministry and Department regularly report to this Committee.  The co-operation between us is excellent, and I am convinced that our common commitment to housing will ensure that this excellent spirit will continue unabated in the coming financial year.

Equally important is the Provincial Housing Development Board with its Executive Committee, its Assets Committees, an its Portfolio Committees.  They interface with the Department's efforts at the Housing Management Committee, where the chairman, Mr Charles van Eck, and another member of the Board, Mr Vish Suparsad, together with the Superintendent-General, the Deputy Director-General of Local Government and the Deputy Director-General of Housing, and I manage the housing process in this Province.  Collectively, these are the driving force behind delivery.

Mr Chairman, I will now give an overview of the past year's highlights which will show the achievements of these bodies.

OVERVIEW OF PAST YEAR'S HIGHLIGHTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

The annual report of the Department, which was tabled last week, sets out the past year's history in detail.  I shall refer only briefly to some aspects.

STATISTICAL SUMMARY : 1997/1998 FINANCIAL YEAR

The National Department of Housing made an amount of R835,8 million available to KwaZulu-Natal for the 1997/1998 financial year.  This amount represents the total capital funding for the financing of housing initiatives.  The responsibility to allocate these funds, which are not reflected in the Department's budget, rests with the Provincial Housing Development Board.

The Board currently has 258 approved projects for subsidy schemes.  This number includes the project-linked, consolidation, facilitation, and institutional schemes.  These projects have the potential to create 129 866 housing opportunities at a cost of some R1,725 billion.

In addition, the Board approved 9 408 applications for the Individual Subsidy Scheme, implemented from 1 September 1995, and has already paid out R119 069 351 to beneficiaries.  As at 30 March 1998, a total amount of R854 million has reached the end-user in terms of the new subsidy schemes.

Of the total amount of R835,8 million available for 1997/1998 financial year, an amount of R836,1 million has been spent as at 31 March 1998.  I am sure the Finance Committee will pick this up, because this expenditure equates to 100,03% of the allocated budget.  This is a remarkable improvement on the previous financial year, which is an indication that cash flows are reaching acceptable levels.

What is important, Mr Chairman, is that in the process there are, as at 30 April 1998, 102 728 housing opportunities which were either completed or under construction.  I am convinced that the momentum we gained would have enabled us to achieve our target of 195 000 housing opportunities by the end of 1999.

REPORT ON NEW SUBSIDY INSTRUMENTS INTRODUCED IN 1997/1998

Mr Chairman, I will turn to the report on the new subsidy instruments which were introduced in 1997/1998.  Some of these instruments are included in the hand-outs which you received with the speech, and I think it will make very, very valuable reading.  It is a brochure where the different types of subsidies are detailed and identified, and these were widely distributed, not only here in the House, but to all members of the public as well.  I think that all hon members of this House, whether they belong to the Portfolio Committee or not, should try and familiarise themselves with the contents of this particular document.

SAKHASONKE JOINT VENTURE

Mr Chairman, the Sakhasonke Joint Venture programme is one which the House is familiar with.  Details of this venture appear on page 17 of the Annual Report.  Suffice to say that this programme assisted to a great extent to kick-start housing delivery in this Province.  The projects are at various stages of development, and to date some 128 projects, comprising 116 738 opportunities, have been identified by the Programme.

HOUSING SUPPORT MECHANISMS

I will now turn to housing support mechanisms.  Members who have received copies of the speech will realise that I am skipping portions, because I am sure that they can read this in their own time.  In the interests of time, I will just refer to the very relevant issues.

AN HON MEMBER:  Just refer to the ones you wrote.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing): 

MORTGAGE INDEMNITY FUND

Mr Chairman, the life of the mortgage indemnity scheme, reported to this House last year, is running its full term at the end of this month.  However, the provincial forum will carry on with its good work of normalising areas, resolving disputes, and educating communities about all aspects of housing.

HOUSING SUPPORT CENTRES

Housing support centres, I believe, are crucial to ensure accelerated housing delivery in the Province.  Thus far, the Provincial Housing Development Board has approved five housing support centres.  These centres will assist individuals to access land, services, and technical aid in a way that leads to the transfer of skills to, and empowerment of communities.  The philosophy of housing support centres is that they must support the people's housing process.  We trust that through these housing support centres, Mr Chairman, people will be able to get more value for money, and build much larger units than are presently being built.

RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

The programmes within the RDP that were previously known as the Municipal Infrastructure Programme, Extended Municipal Infrastructure Programme, Bulk Connector Infrastructure Grants, and Urban Renewal Programme, coupled with the Special Presidential Lead Projects have now been merged into one programme, and that programme is known as the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme.  At the time of merging, these programmes had completed 365 projects out of 458 approved projects at a value of R455 360 075.

DISCOUNT BENEFIT SCHEME TO PROMOTE HOME OWNERSHIP : UBUNINIMUZI PROJECT

Mr Chairman, I would now like to turn to the Discount Benefit Scheme to promote home ownership, which we call the Ubuninimuzi Project.  Here too, a massive public campaign was embarked on, and the relevant pamphlet was also handed out to colleagues earlier on today.  That is the one here.

In terms of national policy, the Discount Benefit Scheme is now being accelerated in specified R293 and section 30(2) towns throughout the Province.  The Discount Benefit Scheme allows eligible tenants to purchase their rented homes at a substantially discounted price, as well as allowing current debtors to extinguish their outstanding debts.  The accelerated programme commenced in October 1997, and is expected to be completed by the end of March 1999, creating up to 60 000 outright home-owners.  The acceleration of the Scheme, aptly termed the Ubuninimuzi, that is the home ownership project, aims at helping eligible tenants or occupants living in former State-financed housing stock to buy their rented homes, or settle their outstanding debts to the State.  These beneficiaries will qualify for a discount of up to R7 500 on the purchase price of their homes or they will be able to settle their outstanding debt.  In most cases, this means that individuals may become home-owners without paying out anything.  The discount of R7 500 will cover the transfer of the house into the purchaser's name, the cost of the house and the land, and arrears in rental, all up to a maximum of R7 500.  It is important to note, Mr Chairman, that no money will change hands, as a result of the discount is simply a book entry.  

The steps that have been taken to ensure the success of the Ubuninimuzi Project, include amongst others:

*	Knock-and-drop leaflets, explaining the process, and these leaflets have been delivered to the affected homes to inform the target community, and they are all identified in the leaflets.

*	Educational workshops have been held where they have provided information about the projects, as well as home ownership, and this will take place also at the Housing Bureau Offices to ensure that all applicants take well- informed decisions.

*	The Department has also embarked on an extensive media campaign to ensure that all potential beneficiaries learn about the Ubuninimuzi Discount Benefit Scheme Project through the press or radio.

FORMALISATION OF THE HOME OWNERSHIP PROCESS IN FORMER OWN-AFFAIRS DEVELOPMENTS

The next issue I wish to touch on is the formalisation of the home ownership process in former own-affairs developments.  Mr Chairman, I will now provide brief details on the background to the current project dealing with the formalisation of the home ownership process in ex own-affairs developments.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, various housing developments were undertaken under the auspices of the former Houses of Assembly, Delegates and Representatives in KwaZulu-Natal.  While the actual construction of the developments and houses were completed, in many cases the process of formalising the ownership process of these houses was never completed or, in many cases, never initiated.  The result was that the Administration records indicated that there were in excess of 8 000 houses in KwaZulu-Natal where occupation had not been taken by the lessees or the owners.  In many cases people have been staying rent-free since moving in up to 10 years earlier.  This has resulted in massive amounts of instalment income not being recovered by the State.

A project team was set up in July 1997 to investigate the status of housing still owned by the State in KwaZulu-Natal, and to initiate the necessary processes to finalise the formalisation of the ownership of houses.

PROVINCIAL HOUSING PLAN

Mr Chairman, we have also developed a Provincial Housing Plan, and full details of this plan appear on page 20 of the Annual Report.  However, I will just touch on one or two issues where the strategic plan essentially addresses the following issues, namely:

*	What is the target to be achieved over the next five years and within the next two year business plan?
*	How will the targets be achieved?
*	Who will be involved?
*	How will the implementation models be phased in with the new stakeholders?
*	How much will delivery projects cost?
*	How should the available target be allocated equitably across the Province?

The outcome of the Provincial Housing Strategy is intended to result in effective and efficient delivery, which is also equitable and transparent.  I believe, Mr Chairman, this will lead to sustainable and appropriate housing delivery through pro-active and flexible interventions.

FINANCIAL ALLOCATIONS FOR 1998/1999

I now turn to the financial allocations for the 1998/1999 financial year.  Mr Chairman, I would now like to give a brief summary of the allocations.  Housing funds are made available in two ways:

Firstly, by means of voted funds from this Government and secondly, by means of a capital allocation from the National Department of Housing for subsidies and projects.

VOTED FUNDS

The housing branch has been allocated an amount of R20,120 million for the 1998 financial year from provincial coffers.  R10,120 million of this amount is voted in Programme 1, (Administration), for the operational expenditure.  All personnel and other costs are absorbed by this Programme, as was indicated by my hon colleague in the debate on Local Government.  The balance of R10 million is voted in Programme 5, (Housing), for the Sakhasonke Joint Venture.

May I add, Mr Chairman, that it was not possible for us in the short time to separate the two budgets, Local Government and Housing, and we decided that the budget should stay together, but the political responsibilities be shifted between colleague Miller and I.

The operations of the Joint Venture will have to be scaled down in order for the Department to be in line with the budget allocation.  Scaling down will have a detrimental effect on housing delivery within this Province.

HOUSING FUNDS

In the 1998/1999 financial year, the Province has been allocated from National Department R570,240 million.  This in effect means, Mr Chairman, colleagues, that the Province has been cut by R266 million from last year's allocation of R836 million.  With such a shortfall it will be very difficult to approve new projects.

The formula used at national level to divide the housing budget between the nine provinces is based on the population statistics of 1990, the housing backlog, and the performance of provinces.  May I at this stage say that KwaZulu-Natal ranked second in terms of performance of housing delivery in the country.  I think we would have been ahead of Gauteng had they not had a number of service sites which were ready for top structures at the beginning of 1994.  The debate around this formula, Mr Chairman, is continuing at monthly MINMEC meetings.  In my view, the population statistics of 1996 should have been used, because those figures reflect that KwaZulu-Natal has a population of 20,27%.  If those statistics had been used we would have got an additional R13 million which would have enabled us to provide an additional 1 000 subsidies to the people of this Province.

I was taken aback when the hon colleague Miss Barrett informed me that she had raised this matter at NCOP.  The hon National Minister reported that this formula was approved at MINMEC.  Yes, while it was approved at MINMEC, Mr Chairman, I would like to place on record that there was strong opposition from KwaZulu-Natal to the application of this particular formula.  We believe we should have had a much fairer slice of the allocation than was given to us.

VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Mr Chairman, I would now like to deal with my vision for the future in terms of housing and housing delivery.  I believe in a "hands-on" approach to housing, and will do all in my power to facilitate delivery and to remove obstacles impeding the process.  Apart from current initiatives, I would also like to focus on aspects which would further stimulate growth, and create opportunities for previously disadvantaged groups.

SMALL, MEDIUM AND MICRO ENTREPRENEURS

Small, medium and micro enterprises need to be empowered.  Housing delivery in general and low cost housing in particular create enormous potential for emerging contractors and entrepreneurs to enter the business world.

MR B H CELE:  INTERJECTION

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  I am sure the hon Mr Cele will get an opportunity to participate in the debate later on.  The multiplier effect of housing delivery will in the natural course of events give rise to further opportunities for the development of SMMEs.

It is therefore my vision that with the ongoing development of SMMEs they be afforded an opportunity to move away from sub-consultancy involvement to becoming full and major contractors.  I will also ask the Provincial Housing Board to ensure that when they approve projects, they have got to see to what extent small contractors are given an opportunity to also benefit from those projects.

Mr Chairman, I cannot condemn strongly enough the building of 12 to 18 square metre houses for people of this Province.  I am, however, aware of the financial constraints developers have to contend with, but firmly believe that if adequate support is given to communities in the form of skills and the provision of housing support centres, we in this Province will find ourselves providing more socially acceptable housing.  I would like the members of the Portfolio Committee, and members of this House to apply their minds to devising ...

MR B H CELE:  INTERJECTION.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  ... initiatives that will improve the size of houses that we are currently building.

Furthermore, Mr Chairman, in the low cost housing market we are faced with the fact ...

MR A RAJBANSI:  Mr Chairman, on a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Point of order.  Can we hear the point of order from the hon member Mr Ntombela.

MR T D NTOMBELA: (Whip):

TRANSLATION:  Chairperson, I think that this thing should be straightened out.  It is not right that this hon Bheki should cause disturbance in the House and no steps are taken.  I, David Ntombela, and Shabalala were taken out.  We were taken outside and given a red card.  But all the time Bheki just does as he pleases.  You should not allow that, Chairperson.  There should not be a member who disrespects other members of Parliament.  That is not right, Chairperson.  Truly that is not right.  If Bheki is going to continue doing this, then he must govern the country and take it and make it his own.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I think the hon member's concerns are noted, and I really appeal to all the members here that yes, we do allow members to heckle, but not excessively.  I think that has been said time and again.  I am also going to start issuing yellow cards, and a red card finally.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon Minister continue please.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.  Thank you for your protection.  Mr Chairman, further in the low cost housing market we are faced with the fact that the maximum subsidy is R15 000 for families earning below R1 500 per month.  What happens is that it is essential that the bulk of the money goes into the final product and as little as possible is spent on administrative costs and consultancy fees.

It is my intention, Mr Chairman, with the help of this House and the Portfolio Committee, to continue a debate at a national level on the adequacy of the R15 000 subsidy.  It is my view that Central Government must very seriously consider the partial, if not total, subsidy of servicing costs for sites so as to ensure that more money is available for top structures.  I am aware that the national fiscus cannot at this stage increase the subsidy, but I believe that by subsidising internal infrastructure, as in the case of bulk infrastructure, the size of top structures can increase dramatically.

I am also committed to a clean housing administration.  Where fraudulent practices and abuse of the subsidy scheme come to my notice, I will take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators, be they officials within the Department, developers, attorneys and the like.

Investigations carried out by my Department and the South African Police Service over the last few months have led to the prosecution and sentencing of eight officials to a minimum gaol sentence of three years, and an order of court to refund stolen money to the Department.  To date, approximately R65 000 has been recovered from these officials.  Further investigations are still being conducted by the police and further arrests are imminent.

Mr Chairman, in an article which appeared in the Sunday Tribune of 24 May 1998, under the heading, "Judge Willem Heath, the man who saved South Africa R10 billion", reference is made to the KwaZulu-Natal team of the Heath Commission being, "on the brink of recovering R150 million in housing subsidies which fraudsters have conned the Government out of".  It continues to say, "with non-existent properties and fabricated transfer of documents".  In order to put the record straight, I would like to say that it was officials from the Department of Housing who uncovered the possible fraud by members of the public, who applied for new subsidies whilst in fact owning other property already.  These cases are being investigated at the moment, and if fraud is suspected the matter will be handed over to the South African Police Service. 

What I do want to stress, however, Mr Chairman, is that it is wrong to speculate on the amount of money involved as has been done.  I am assured, and I do believe that it is nowhere near the R150 million which was referred to in the newspaper article, and mentioned by Judge Heath.  I will, however, report later on the outcome of the investigation.

Mr Chairman, I hope that by these very harsh measures, I am sending a clear message to the perpetrators and those who think that public funds are up for grabs and that fraud and corruption will be stamped out at all costs in the housing fraternity.  I am also encouraging members of the communities out there to pass to me whatever information they have to assist my Department in uprooting fraud and corruption.

I also see a more pro-active role for municipalities in the delivery of housing infrastructure services.  Affordable land in close proximity of work opportunities must be acquired for low cost housing.  Bulk and internal services must be funded in such a way that as much as possible of the subsidy goes towards the construction of a sizeable top structure.  I have also received submissions from certain hon members of the Housing Portfolio Committee, and as a result of the recommendations made by members of the Portfolio Committee, I have decided, and I would like to announce to this House, to abolish the Assets Committee.  I have requested the Housing Board to establish a committee consisting of Board members to deal with the assets of the Board.

CONCLUSION

Mr Chairman, in conclusion, undoubtedly, this is a year for belt-tightening.  The cutting of the budget by R266 million this year will certainly affect our housing delivery programme to the extent that our target date of delivering 195 000 units will have to be pushed out to the year 2001.  The management of our available funds will have to be carefully planned and regularly monitored in order to keep as much as possible of the existing momentum going.  To this end, a reprioritisation model was developed by my Department and the Housing Board, which, I believe, will enable us to reschedule stagnating projects, and release funds for performing projects.  In addition, the budget cut came at a time when new initiatives have been launched at national level through MINMEC.  I have mentioned one of those initiatives which is the rural housing policy.

Other initiatives include:

*	The People's Housing Process, which is aimed at the empowerment of communities to manage their own housing programmes; and
*	The development of a policy to assist disabled persons.

These new initiatives can only be funded from the current budget.

Another avenue which is being explored is the active participation of the banking sector in low cost housing.  Although lending by banks in previously disadvantaged areas has picked up slightly, it is of concern to me to note that the banking sector has not achieved the target that was agreed on in terms of the Record of Understanding singed between the Government and the Association of Mortgage Lenders in 1995.

It is at a time like this that one realises that Government funding alone is not sufficient to cater for the housing needs of the people.  It is absolutely imperative that the banking industry plays its role.  I certainly, Mr Chairman, intend to pursue this matter further until a satisfactory arrangement is reached by all concerned.

Mr Chairman, and hon colleagues, I thank you for your attention, and have pleasure in tabling that portion of vote 8, (which is Programme 5), for discussion and debate.  I full well realise that the amount contained therein is minimal, but I do believe that the Housing Branch will be in a position to make optimal use of its appropriated funds under this vote.  I thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  I now have pleasure to call upon the hon Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of Housing, Mr Naicker to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR S V NAICKER:  Mr Chairman, the hon Premier and the Minister of Housing ...

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  Hon Chair, is this the real Mr Naicker?  I thought this was Mr Naicker here?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Are you rising on a point of order, Dr Sutcliffe?

DR M O SUTCLIFFE:  I thought this was Mr Naicker here.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Will the hon Mr Naicker proceed.

MR S V NAICKER:  You will take note of the injury time, Mr Chairman, with respect.  [LAUGHTER]  Sir, it is with a great sense of emotional attachment to the housing needs of our Province that I address this House, and accordingly respond to the hon Minister's housing budget.

At the outset I want to congratulate the hon Mr N Singh on being appointed as the Minister of Housing.  Disappointment comes indeed at a crucial juncture of the lifespan of the first five years.  Firstly, the financial constraints.  Secondly, to immediately feature in the housing budget debate.  But I, together with the Committee, will remain committed as always, not to politicise, but to assist the mobility of the housing process.

Before I go any further, Mr Chairman, it is my duty to acknowledge the contribution of the Housing Portfolio Committee.  This Committee was indeed a committed Committee.  I want to name them for the purpose of record.  Miss B Barrett who has been the study group chair and who has done an excellent piece of work.  Mr M V Ngema, Mr F Rehman, Miss M Xulu, Mr V V Mvelase, Mr Y S Bhamjee, Miss M N Buthelezi, Mr Mabuyakhulu and Mr A Rajbansi.  Alternative members, Mrs A Mchunu, Mrs N C Mkhize, Mr R Haripersaad, Mr G Bhengu, Miss F M Nahara, Miss M Blose, Mr Mthembu and Mr Gordon Haygarth.

These were the members of the Housing Portfolio Committee, Mr Chairman.  During the course of the past year this particular Committee did not fail to have its meetings.  The number of meetings held were eight.  Nine in loco inspections, and two special meetings besides other representations that were made, were held.

This Committee visited the Homeless Federation, which was more or less in limbo.  This Committee has made tangible contributions on behalf of the Homeless Federation resulting in the R4,5 million application that was announced.  Amongst the other issues that was also addressed was the question of the displaced traders which goes back about 30 years.  This Committee played a pivotal role in addressing that issue.  On the other hand, the outreach exercise carried out by the Committee, it visited Vryheid, Newcastle, Ladysmith, Dundee, Glencoe, Dannhauser, and it is continuing with this exercise.  But I might as well say, Mr Chairman, that this was indeed an excellent exercise.  The hon Minister mentioned here those 12, 16 or 18 metre houses which were found in those regions. It is a very poor reflection on this Parliament to witness what we did, to have houses about the size of 16 and 18 square metres, with one door and with no ventilation whatsoever.  That was brought to the attention of the administration, sir.  Many other issues have been established and we have consulted with the relevant departments.

I also want to place on record, which is my duty here, a very special thanks to Mr van der Walt, the head of the Housing: Local Government division, for his contribution, and of course one person stands out, the Deputy Director-General Mr Nico Malan.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR S V NAICKER:  He is indeed in essence a symbol of the public service, who is ever willing, ever accommodating and ever understanding.  I want to appeal to the Minister, should he request retirement, that his retirement not be considered.  [LAUGHTER]

I do, however, have many concerns, Mr Chairman, regarding the future of housing in this Province, and I want to be rather clinical in this particular debate.  Underpinning all my concerns is the drastic housing budget cut that this Province has experienced this year.  From a budget of R835,8 million for the fiscal year 1997/1998 our Province now finds itself having to contend with a reduced budget of R570,2 million for 1998/1999.  The stark reality, Mr Chairman, and ramification of the budget cut was forcefully brought home to me during the course of this week, when I came across this advert in the newspapers.  The question beckons us as to how we reconcile our conscience with what we are in actual fact supposed to be addressing, namely the needs of people, and now to say:

	Applications for interviews for subsidies of both credit linked and non-credit linked will not be considered until further notice.  No new projects or amendments to existing project applications, (project linked institutional consolidated) and facilitation funds will be considered until further notice.

Which merely means we are helpless simply because we have no funds.  Of course, one can understand that a sudden announcement of this nature, sends a signal to the broad masses of our people who are expecting the provision of homes.  It is therefore absolutely imperative that our Department addresses the issue of maximal usage of the limited housing funds, most innovatively.  Whilst addressing the issue of the adequacy of housing funds for this Province, may I ask whether the Department has given any consideration to the usage of alternative provincial funds to augment the reduced housing budget.  Details in this regard would be appreciated.

A further area where the impact of the reduced housing budget is sorely being felt is in the rural areas.  I am pleased, Mr Chairman, that the Minister made a statement here about the rural subsidy.  Whilst I am cogently aware that your Department is in the process of drafting a comprehensive five year housing strategy and a two year housing business plan, the depth of rural housing development is a cause for great concern for this House.  Let us be seen not to be making statements and flowery speeches.  Let us be seen not to be submitting beautiful laminated paper reports.  I must commend the Minister for the quality of the paper that he used in this report.  Whilst I am cogently aware of all these problems, it is imperative, hon Minister, that rural housing features very prominently in your housing plan for the coming year.  I make this plea cognisant of the financial constraints your Department is experiencing, but must emphasise that a significant portion of your housing budget for this year must be devoted to improving the lot of the rural people of our Province.

The introduction by National Housing of a policy supporting the people's housing process, is indeed a reasonable good measure.  Again, sir, the question of funding, to implement such measures, come to mind.

The hon Mr Chairman, I am, as are many others in this House, aware of the introduction of the new Housing Act, 107 of 1997.  For the first time in the history of this country we have a piece of housing legislation, devoid of any racial tag, which previously seriously hampered the efficient delivery of housing to all sectors of the South African society.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR S V NAICKER:  An important adjunct to the proclamation of the Housing Act, 107 of 1997, Mr Chairman, is the need for a Provincial Housing Act for the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.  I am reliably informed that many other provinces have been very pro-active in this regard, and have either already introduced their own provincial housing legislation, or are on the verge of having it passed by the provincial legislature.  Sir, I am aware that Cabinet approved the final draft of our own Bill, but it is important that this piece of legislation is enacted as soon as possible, as it will have far-reaching implications for housing in this Province.

An important development that readily springs to mind is the creation of a Provincial Housing Fund which is sorely needed to drive housing in this Province.  Sir, I am also aware that the new Housing Act provides a framework for the accreditation of local authorities, as the hon Minister mentioned in his budget speech.

The extinguishing of the local authority debts with the erstwhile National Housing Board in terms of section 14(4)(b) of the Housing Act, in my mind, also adds a very exciting dimension to housing delivery in this Province.

I would now like to take the opportunity of addressing the provincial housing initiative.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  It will not be possible, Mr Naicker.  The time is up.

MR S V NAICKER:  Thank you, sir.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Next on the list is the hon member Mr Bhamjee, who will address the House for 12 minutes.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  Mr Chairman, thank you for offering me this opportunity to speak.  I wish to compliment the Minister for giving us a very detailed report in such a short space of time.  I also wish to take this opportunity of thanking the officials, both of Local Government and Housing, who have been very helpful in supporting us when it came to dealing with issues relating to the disadvantaged communities.  I trust that that sort of support from the officials will continue.

I wish to focus mainly on three points.  That is the performance of the Provincial Housing Board, the non-partisan nature of housing delivery in this Province, and the big construction companies that have left, what is the impact and how we can ensure that the smaller companies will benefit.  We need to be pro-active in that regard.

The Provincial Housing Board of our Province is one of the best performing Boards in this country, not because Belinda and myself serve on the Board, but because we have a committed team of people.

AN HON MEMBER:  The hon Belinda.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  The hon Belinda and myself.  They are a committed group of people who have, in co-operation with the Department of Local Government and Housing, established an enviable track record of performance.

Cash flow projections, consistent policy application, the meticulous non-partisan approach to housing delivery, the integrity have all brought credit to our Province.  At National Council of Provinces we have been able to hold our heads high as performers.

The National Director-General of Housing reported to the National that she was surprised at the performance of the Province.  She was able, through the Nomvula information system, to establish independently that we have created over 90 000 housing opportunities for people.  We were severely criticised for the slow start, but we are building a sold base from which to tackle housing delivery, and we have performed not in short bursts, but consistently on an upward curve.  This delivery has, however, been severely affected by the budget cuts referred to by the Minister.

It is a credit to all who have been involved in this process, and we from the Legislature acknowledge this performance.  Better performance means more money can be allocated to our Province to help more people in need.

The non-partisan nature in the Provincial Housing Board.

While considering our performance in the Province, one of the most critical elements, I have observed, has been the non-partisan nature of the decision-making in respect of the application of the housing subsidies.  Housing has been able to demonstrate how we can all co-operate for the uplifting of all the people in our Province.  There is now, however, a serious danger and that is as funds become scarcer for housing, there may be a temptation for greater political interference in the decision-making in subsidy allocation.  This would be a great blunder, and in this regard the hon Minister is warned to pay serious heed.  I have had my differences, and I continue to have differences with our hon Minister Miller, but it is clear and I have observed that he has not directly interfered with the performance of the Housing Board.  So you are not a bad guy after all, hon Minister.  [LAUGHTER]

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Thank you.  I am very grateful for that.

MR Y S BHAMJEE:  I urge the Minister to continue with this tradition for the good of our Province as a whole.  As I indicated earlier, the support networks in both the Local Government and Housing Departments are good.  I think the new Minister must make sure that people who have been serving for a long time get due credit, and that promotions take place across the divide so that your workforce is a happy one.  Without a happy workforce you will find that you will not have delivery on the ground.

In terms of the big construction companies, much has been said about the big construction companies having left the low income market.  What is observed is that many have left, and in leaving they have created space for hundreds of small builders who would otherwise have not been able to participate in the delivery process.  One also observes that those big construction companies which have remained have chosen to work primarily in the housing market, which is paid for entirely by the subsidy.  This has reduced their risks and seen a slow-down in delivery in the income category of persons earning over R1 500 per month. There are needs in that segment of our community which are not being serviced by the construction industry.  It is in an area which will need to be addressed in a new and considered manner.  The support of local authorities working in partnership with the Province, and with those remaining and emerging from the private sector, could make a huge difference.

Our long term programme.  The lessons of the past few years in housing delivery have taught us that our housing problems are not going to be overcome quickly.  My colleague the hon member Mildred Buthelezi will be addressing this House on the people's housing process.  This process is slower than contractor built housing.  It, however, will make people a lot happier.  The boom time approach to housing with large budgets, which should remain unspent, forced the Province to consider the establishment of the Provincial Housing Delivery Programme.  The boom time approach is, however, wasteful of scarce resources, and this was our original criticism of the provincial housing delivery programme.  The programme gets an additional subsidy from the provincial line department.  To the credit of the programme, it has helped with housing in the small towns which could otherwise have been bypassed.  With the budget cuts, both in terms of the housing subsidies and the provincial line budget, it may be opportune to re-open a debate about what kind of capacity is needed, at a provincial level, which is cost effective, while providing  support to the rural areas and the small towns in the housing sphere.

Finally, Mr Chairman, I wish to argue very strongly that one of the most important components of the housing policy is the question of incremental housing.  I would urge the hon Minister and the Portfolio Committee to debate the issue on People's Housing Programmes, for therein lies the strength of the housing subsidy policy.  There is creativity on the ground. Thunder storms and rain do not destroy those informal settlements.  You need to blend western technology with home-made technology so that we can truly come up with a product that is truly South African.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Bhamjee.  I now call upon the hon member Miss Barrett, to address the House for 20 minutes.

MISS B BARRETT:  Mr Chairman, hon members of this House.  For those involved in low cost housing development, 1998 is going to be the hardest year we have ever faced.  I am not going to focus my attention on the R10 million allocated to the provincial housing vote, but the R570 million allocated directly by National Government, because this is where the crisis lies.

The new housing subsidy scheme has only been in place for four years.  Building up delivery capacity in this service sector has been an extremely difficult process: for the establishment of effective administrative and financial systems; for the formation of development committees at community level; and by forging a partnership with the private sector, both in the construction and financial divisions.  Coupled with this is the extensive preparation is the lead time it takes for any construction project to commence: time needed for community participation, town planning and township establishment.  Due to the complex land issues that exist in KwaZulu-Natal, and the exodus of highly trained personnel from the planning division of our Department who took the severance package, it took as much as nine months before construction began on the ground.

This is a nightmare of yesteryear.  KwaZulu-Natal can boast of a highly committed housing team, and we have worked together to overcome many of the obstacles before us, and in numerous instances provided a blueprint for other provinces to follow.  In the last three months of the 1997/1998 financial year we spent a total of R354 million on the ground.  The total actual expenditure for the last financial year was a whopping R836 million, which equates to approximately 48 600 housing opportunities.  Housing is by far the leading service delivery sector in the country - it is the sector that is increasing investment, creating jobs, empowering the community, and providing shelter for the poor.  So how does National Government reward this dedication and commitment in our Province?  It slashes the budget!

In 1994 the newly elected National Government, in line with the ANC election promises, gave its word that in order for the provinces to deliver the estimated backlog of one million houses in a period of five years, the national fiscal allocation to housing would increase from 1% to 5%.  Housing development is one of the only tangible success stories of the new Government, yet for no logical reason, National Government has broken its promise to the disadvantaged people of South Africa.  The national housing budget allocation still remains far below the 2% mark, and for the 1998/1999 financial year has been decreased from R4,7 billion last year to R3,6 billion, with only R2,8 billion of this total budget to be distributed to the provinces.  For KwaZulu-Natal this equates to a decrease from R836 million last year to R570 million, a shortfall of R266 million.

KwaZulu-Natal was well within reach of meeting its target share of the estimated national housing backlog.  National Treasury is the only body that stands in the way of this reality, so it is Treasury that must take full responsibility for the devastating consequences this year's budget cut will have on the ground.  These affects include the following:

In the past four years the private sector has geared up to deliver low cost houses at an increasingly rapid rate.  As part of KwaZulu-Natal's commitment to meet its 19,5% share of the backlog, which equates to 195 000 units, our Province geared up to spend over R60 million a month on housing.  Hence, the private sector has invested their resources to meet the housing needs of this country, but Government has failed to deliver its part of the bargain, because of its lunatic decision to decrease the national housing budget.

As a result of approved over-commitments, but no increase in budget, KwaZulu-Natal will not be in a position to approve new projects until October this year.  Hence, we have to stop the momentum of housing delivery in midstream, with a huge lull in expenditure and delivery, as the new project lead times only commence in October.  This gross short-sightedness is going to destroy private sector confidence in the long term.

What are provinces meant to say to our communities?  First phases of projects have been completed, but there is no money to commit for second and future phases.  Will National Treasury visit the provinces and publicly explain why part of a community benefits from the subsidy scheme, while the other half must wait indefinitely for their turn?  KwaZulu-Natal has R1 billion worth of projects in the pipeline that have been prepared at considerable cost.  After intensive negotiations with communities, as part of the project packaging process, many communities must now be told they will have to wait two to three years to have their projects funded.

In summary, the actual reduction of our budgetary allocation is going to have an alarming domino effect throughout the country:  on private sector participation, on housing delivery rates, on huge potential job losses, on productivity, just to mention a few.  In the interim, the Provincial Housing Board and Housing Department has done everything it can to tighten its belt and manage the monthly cash flows as efficiently as possible.  We have pro-actively produced a detailed annual financial plan to manage the current funding crisis.  And this brings me to the second part of my debate, which will cover KwaZulu-Natal's share of the national housing allocation.

Housing funds for the provinces are voted on a formula taking the following factors into account: population statistics, poverty levels, urban/rural split, and performance.  Based on this formula, KwaZulu-Natal received a paltry 19,8% this year.  This is gross underfunding taking any of the criteria into account.

I will start with population statistics and refer to page 32 of the National Housing Annual Report, which I do have amongst my documents if anybody would like to see it.  Here the preliminary results of the 1996 population census conducted by Central Statistical Services reveal that KwaZulu-Natal has the highest population in the country at 20,27%, followed by Gauteng with 18,94%, and the Eastern Cape at 15,49%.  So can somebody explain to me why Gauteng was allocated R725 million this financial year, R155 million more than KwaZulu-Natal?  And this is not just our gripe.  With only a 3,45% difference between the Eastern Cape and Gauteng, the Eastern Cape is only getting half of what Gauteng gets with its R388 million allocation.

Now lets turn to poverty levels, coupled with the urban/rural split.  KwaZulu-Natal is labelled the second poorest province with the biggest rural population, a sector which makes up just less than 50% of our total population.  Because National Government has lagged behind in the finalisation of the rural housing subsidy policy, KwaZulu-Natal has not been permitted to start any housing projects within our traditional rural areas.  The vast majority of people in Gauteng live within or near the urban centres, yet their housing delivery programme has been prioritised over ours.  This year the rural housing programme is due to be finalised - at long last!  So KwaZulu-Natal must rally the support of other rural-based provinces, and demand an additional, special allocation for our rural housing programme.

The last criterion was performance, and this is the ultimate crime in the budget allocation.  Last financial year KwaZulu-Natal far outstripped the monthly performance level of any other province, each month setting a new record for housing delivery.  You just will not believe it!  When this year's budget was discussed at MINMEC, a campaign was led by Gauteng to scrap the performance criteria as "all provinces performed well last year".  It was finally agreed that KwaZulu-Natal's basic budget formula of 19,5% would be increased by exactly 0,3%.  Should they have bothered at all?

Now let me explain Gauteng's position, because it is a story the media always fail to print, and I also notice year in and year out the media are never here for the housing debate.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MISS B BARRETT:  For the first two years of the housing subsidy scheme, Gauteng's performance, comparatively, was outstanding.  Not surprisingly!  Almost their entire housing budget was spent building top structures on already completed serviced sites.  Gauteng inherited a stock in excess of 60 000 serviced sites.  They were given permission by the National Housing Board, and it was the only province that was given permission, to write off much of these costs, leaving them to spend virtually the entire R15 000 subsidy on the house itself.  

AN HON MEMBER:  Belinda, why are you not giving your MEC a hard time.

MISS B BARRETT:  They got in large construction companies and proceeded to churn out houses in their thousands.  Why has nobody asked Gauteng how far they have gone to empower small and medium contractors?

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!

MISS B BARRETT:  And last year when Gauteng presented their annual budget plan, they had not even begun housing development in the informal settlements, focusing their entire budget on the two top highest income brackets of the subsidy.

While Dan Mofakeng was cutting ribbons to open multi-million Rand housing projects, which were regaled by National Government, KwaZulu-Natal had rolled up its sleeves and tackled the most difficult problem of all - development amongst the poorest of the poor.  70% to 80% of KwaZulu-Natal's housing budget is devoted to families who earn less than R1 500 a month, and we have spent four hard years trying to find the most cost effective way to spread the R15 000 subsidy to pay for land, services and top structure.  Projects of this nature take much longer to package and complete, and I do not have to tell the construction people among us, the nightmare it is to finalise an in-situ upgrade of an informal settlement.  This involves penetrating densely populated urban villages, the constant relocation of households throughout the duration of the project, and tense negotiations on the ground.  KwaZulu-Natal has yet to be acknowledged for leading the field in this regard.

When we heard of the imminent budget cut, KwaZulu-Natal immediately developed a stringent financial plan to manage the current funding crisis, and this plan was presented to NCOP and MINMEC in the past few weeks.  The reward for our pro-activity and prudence, is that approximately R90 million extra has been found in the national housing budget to be allocated to the provinces, and KwaZulu-Natal will not be getting one cent.  Instead the money is to go to certain provinces unnamed to fund unauthorised contractual commitments.

I am appealing to all colleagues in this House, this is not a political fight.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MISS B BARRETT:  And I want to repeat this, this is not a political fight, this is a battle for our people in KwaZulu-Natal, who are represented by all political parties seated here today.

MR A RAJBANSI:  On a point of order.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Can we hear the point of order from Mr Rajbansi.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Is it parliamentary for Dr Mike Sutcliffe to shout to hon Barrett that she must not read her speech?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I think we have been through that debate a number of times, and I will say the hon Miss Barrett should continue with her speech please.

MISS B BARRETT:  Thank you.  I am going to repeat that last paragraph.  I am appealing to all colleagues in this House, that this is not a political fight, this is a battle for our people in KwaZulu-Natal, who are represented by all political parties seated here today.  The Cinderella treatment received by KwaZulu-Natal is just not acceptable, and we have to stand together and fight against this unconstitutional discrimination received from National Government.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MISS B BARRETT:  And secondly, the battle for all provinces is to demand a larger cut of the national budget.  Through joint portfolio committee meetings and through MINMEC, we need to add our weight behind the National Minister in her negotiations with Central Treasury.  It can be proved that the housing sector is outstripping the performance of any other service delivery sector in South Africa, and together with tightly managed housing departments, the National Treasury could never justifiably refuse our national plea.

On a separate issue, I would like to deal with the possible affect of this year's housing budget cut by National Government on the Cato Manor Presidential Housing Project.  KwaZulu-Natal can boast of having the biggest housing development project in South Africa, and Cato Manor is one of the few housing projects that cater for low cost housing close to the CBD of a large metropolitan city.

So much money has already been invested in Cato Manor.  It is the site for the new academic hospital, it has been earmarked for the building of seven schools, it already has a technikon within its boundaries, and is the location for some of Durban's main arterial roads.

The national housing budget reveals that a total amount of R419 million has been earmarked nationally for SIPPS, or the Special Integrated Presidential Projects, which is due to scale down to R39 million for the following two financial years.  But this RDP funding cannot be used for housing development, but for the building of roads, schools, community halls, trading infrastructure and libraries within presidential housing projects.

In the presentation of the Local Government and Housing debate this year it was erroneously reported that CMDA was way behind in their SIPPS or RDP expenditure.  But unlike the other RDP projects which had to be finalised by the end of last financial year, that is March 1998, the SIPPS programme carries on for another three years, and the total budget is divided accordingly, with any unspent funds rolled over.

CMDA is not far off their projected target expenditure for RDP projects, having completed R42,2 million worth of work out of the budgetary allocation to date of R50,4 million.  The total approved SIPPS allocation to Cato Manor is R130 million.

The area of concern, which I want to raise today, is that whilst special funds have been earmarked for certain infrastructure in Cato Manor, CMDA is dependent on the Province for its housing budget allocation.  This year CMDA is expected to produce a further 7 000 housing units, of which finance has been confirmed for half of that, 3 500, leaving a balance of 3 500 units that will still require funding.  This will equate to a shortfall of R60 million.  Fortunately, however, only a portion of the shortfall, approximately R17 million, will be required during the 1998/1999 financial year, as construction contracts for these projects will roll over into the 1999/2000 financial year.  Expenditure on these projects, if finance is provided, should commence in August.

Comparatively this is not a large amount of the provincial budget, but it is necessary at this early stage to timeously bring this matter to the attention of our Minister, in order that the momentum of this crucial project is not interrupted.

I would like to conclude my address by congratulating Minister Singh on his new appointment.  I really do look forward to working with you in the coming year.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MISS B BARRETT:  At the same time, I would like to thank the outgoing Minister and my favourite sparing partner, Peter Miller.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MISS B BARRETT:  Peter, I will miss you and the support you gave me and the Board.  I wish you the best for the challenging months before you as the Head of Finance - it is not an enviable position.  In closing, I support the Housing vote before us.  Thank you.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Miss Barrett.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Volker, to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR V A VOLKER:  I thank you, Mr Chairman.  Mr Chairman, housing is one of the most important needs for a large number of people in this country.  There are quite a few people that already have houses in which they live, but do not own.

The hon the Minister indicated on page 1 of the speech that was distributed, that in terms of the Housing Act, housing loans owed by municipalities to the National Housing Board were extinguished on 1 April 1998.  Mr Chairman, he then continues to say that the loans were written off, were extinguished, but that the payments or the obligations to the municipality still have to be paid, and that they have to be paid into a separate operating account.

I believe that these houses, many of which have been lived in, in some instances for over 50 years, and I refer to places like Chesterville, like Steadville in Ladysmith, Sobantu in Pietermaritzburg, and Bruntville in Mooi River and elsewhere.  I believe these houses that have been occupied by people and families for so many years should be donated to them, and the actual loan be written off and that they become full title deed owners.  

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR V A VOLKER:  If that is what has happened, then I welcome it.  Mr Chairman, on the issue of providing new houses.  I appreciate, and I acknowledge that not only the Minister, but members on all sides of the House have criticised the existing policy of providing what can be termed matchbox houses as a finished top structure.  I would like to lend my support to that opposition.  I believe that it would be far better to provide basically serviced sites with a basic core structure, and materials delivered on site available to the people so that they could use what I would term their own sweat capital to complete those houses.  Bigger houses than the ordinary matchbox houses.

I would like to address another issue, which I believe has possibly not been referred to in this debate, and which I believe is of crucial importance, especially in view of the fact that the Minister is also Minister of Agriculture.

I welcome what he said.  He made reference to a rural housing subsidy policy which was to include ~Amakhosi~ areas, and that is to be welcomed.  If a system can be found where housing development can be provided in the ~Amakhosi~ areas it will be a great improvement and a positive step.  But there is another aspect which I believe also requires attention, which at this moment is creating a tremendous problem.  It is developing into a political issue which is not being resolved.  That is the large number of workers on farms, in the commercial agricultural areas, who have become a political play ball in the housing situation.

I have propagated with the then Natal Agricultural Union, and when I was representative in Klip River, to the rural agricultural farming communities, the large scale development of so-called agri-villages.  It has developed the name agri-villages.  I believe that with agri-villages you can promote ownership and the development of a sound and stable rural community.  In the agricultural areas, in numerous places in Europe, for example, in Germany, they have small villages just about every five kilometres in the agricultural areas.  If something similar were to be done here, that in the agricultural farming areas you could provide agri-villages, provide housing and provide an area with the basic infrastructure.  It would be a positive alternative to the very negative legacy of the former demeaning system of labour tenancy.  It would also address the ongoing problems resulting from land evictions.  It is a problem which must be addressed.

The agri-villages could be supplemented by adjoining small farming units, which people living in those agri-villages could acquire on an instalment basis and use as private ownership.  The agri-villages should provide properly planned residential sites with core top structures, and they should allow owners to input also, as I have referred to, their own sweat capital to complete a proper residential unit.

The site would have to be supplemented by providing access on site to building materials.  Such essential services as roads, water, electricity, creches, schools, church sites, community halls, core recreational facilities should also be planned into the development.  Provision should be made for home industries.  Provision should also be made for small industries, or spaza shops, or things of that nature in order for a core community, healthy soundly based family communities could be developed in the agricultural areas, where people would be the owners of the house.  There would be no question of their residential rights being terminated. They would be the owners, and they would be relieved of the present straightjacket in which many of them are that either they are subjected to the uncertainty of possible eviction from farms, or they have to move into tribal areas.  Many of them are not happy about moving into tribal areas, they would like to be outside the tribal areas and own their own property, but they do not want to go to the urban areas.

Therefore it is essential that this option should be developed on a far more substantial scale to provide for improved facilities for the black agricultural community that is resident in the commercial agricultural areas, but that at the moment have absolutely no real stability.  The solution that has been suggested by Mr Hanekom, the Minister of Land Affairs, is also not the only or the most practical solution. Very often farms are bought with the R15 000 per family subsidy, and people are virtually left on farms that are not viable.  Soon they will become totally agriculturally destructive areas where they will be over-grazed and they will be over-occupied because the basic facilities have not been provided.

Agri-villages should cater for proper facilities and proper planning, and it could be done in conjunction with the white farming agricultural community.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute of left.

MR V A VOLKER:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Many of them would be only too happy and be prepared to contribute.  Contribute with their implements, to contribute with their own addition to building such houses for the workers on their farms.  You would in fact develop a sound community which would add to a far better interracial attitude in this country.  I thank you, Mr Chairman.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Ms Xulu, to address the House for 10 minutes.

MS M XULU: (Whip):  Thank you, Chairperson.  It is unfortunate that Dr Sutcliffe, the hon member, is out.  I would like to tell him that it is unacceptable to us as members of the IFP to say that from our Premier down to the members, we all do not know the Rules of the House.  He forgot himself yesterday, to teach his two Ministers the Rules of the House.  Even this morning he forgot to teach one of his Ministers the Rules of the House.

Chairperson, and hon members.  I would like to join my colleagues in congratulating Minister Singh on his new appointment to Housing.  Hon members, and hon Minister Singh, you have inherited the best run Department in the Province, as well as a very powerful Provincial Housing Board.  I know you will get the support of this dedicated team.  Many thanks also goes to Minister Miller for the work he has done in the Housing Department.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MS M XULU: (Whip):  It was not long after I heard about the provincial housing budget cut, that I began to feel the effect of this cut on the ground.  For many of us who live in the townships, and have to answer to our communities, we have to go back to our people and say we have lied.

In ~Umlazi~, KwaMashu, Inanda, Richmond Farm, and all the black areas we have begun large housing projects.  Because of the size of these projects, many of them have to be divided into two or three phases.  As a community leader, I had to broker agreements with my community as to which section of the community would get the first houses.  In some projects as large as 3 000 units, 1 000 units have been completed and the time has come for the other units to be built.  But when we go to provincial housing we are told there is no money.

We were promised that if the community worked together to ensure that the first phase of the project was a success, without violence and with the commitment that we will pay for our services, the second phase of the project would start immediately.  Communities in KwaZulu-Natal have listened to the Government, and worked hard to get their houses.  Now they are told there is no money.

I, like many other leaders in KwaZulu-Natal, have been asked to mediate in areas where the tension is high, in order for housing projects to start.  In some areas the Provincial Housing Board has given us professional facilitators to package our housing projects.  While working together on these projects, violence has ended and people are expecting the projects to start.  We have gone as far as to agree on the contractors we will use.  Many of these companies have already spent lots of money to plan the projects and submit their applications to the Board.  But they are told there is no money.

It may take a while, but when the people realise that the projects are not going to start in the communities, where parts of projects have already been completed, but no new work has begun, we are going to be blamed, the leaders of KwaZulu-Natal, including yourselves.

At the beginning of last year the National Government told the whole world that KwaZulu-Natal was not spending enough money, and that if we did not spend our allocated budget it would be taken away from us and be given to the other provinces.  We were supposed to be the bad province because they said we were not performing.

One of the things the Provincial Housing Board did, was call together the developers of all the large hostels and requested them to spend their allocated budget for that hostel in three years instead of five years.  Of course, all agreed.  This meant that the hostel upgrading programme could be completed much quicker, with large amounts of money being given to each phase of the project.  Yet, one year later, there is no money at all.  Do you have any idea how the local negotiating groups for the hostels are going to react?

I am going to tell my community that the National Government has cut our housing budget, and stopped the flow of money for housing development.  But if I shout alone my voice is not going to be heard.  I am appealing to you, the newspapers, the radio, and television to tell the people of KwaZulu-Natal the truth.  National Government promised the provinces that they would get 5% of the national budget for housing.  That is the truth.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MS M XULU: (Whip):  They are the ones who have broken their promise. They have even decreased the small percentage they allocated to housing nationally from R4,7 billion last year to R3,6 billion this year.  I am told that KwaZulu-Natal will only be getting R570 million.  We will be getting this same amount for three years.

Hon Ministers and hon members, we have two Ministers present in this House now, your Ministers are not here, but I am appealing to the hon Ministers who are in the House that whenever they attend any function, they must please inform the people of the promises that were made to them but which is not going to happen.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please!

MS M XULU: (Whip):  They must be told that housing the poor is not a national priority.  Buying military aircraft, and supplying arms to African countries responsible for genocide is far more important.  Housing development receives less than 2% of the national budget, which is lower than any developing nation in the world.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MS M XULU: (Whip):  With this kind of commitment, the suffering of our people is going to continue for a long, long time.  The oppressed of the past are becoming the oppressors of today.  I thank you, Chairperson.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Order please! Order please!  I have been given some yellow cards here.  I do not want to make use of them.  [LAUGHTER]  Our next speaker will be the hon member Miss Buthelezi, who will address the House for five minutes.

MISS M N BUTHELEZI:  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  I believe the MEC for Housing has over-emphasized on delivery, which causes people to be passive recipients of Government's largesse.  While appreciating that there is a huge legacy of neglect to undo, the centrally of people being involved integrally in the development processes and projects is entrenched in almost all Government policies and programmes.

The housing policy of our country is built on the concept of partnership and not hand-outs.  If our country is going to reach new heights in its progress and development, then one of the major challenges facing us is how we are going to unlock the popular energies of the masses working in co-operation with other social partners.

The housing policy and the more recent budget cuts bring to the fore the need to focus more directly on the people's participation in housing delivery.  It is a reality that the vast majority of the people have historically housed themselves with little or no assistance from the State.  This continues to happen in the rural areas, and in the informal settlements around our towns and cities.  I am pleased, Mr Chair, to hear that the rural housing policy is in a stage of finalisation, because the housing needs of the rural people will be addressed.

The new housing policy, when it was announced in 1994, was done after much consultation with communities.  There was an expectation that houses could be built within the subsidies being made available for housing.  Unfortunately, it was necessary to use at least half, and in some cases more of the subsidy in acquiring the land and installing the services.  This has left only a small amount towards the construction of a house.  The shortfall in terms of the people's expectations of getting a house built, and what they are actually getting from the subsidy has resulted in great disappointment.  The shortfall has to be met by loans, savings and sweat.  Poor people have little opportunity of getting bank bond finance.  They are therefore left with their own resources to do more on the sites that they acquired through the housing subsidy.

It is in this context that the proposed people's housing process is seen as a sign of hope and support for the poor.  This initiative from the National Department of Housing is intended to bring more resources to the people who are committed and willing to make their own contribution towards the process of housing development and as a supplement to the subsidy.  An additional amount of R550 per subsidy could be obtained if a people's process is established on a housing project.  This additional amount is not to go into the pockets of the developers, but has to be used to support the people in their housing efforts through technical and other support.

We urge the MEC to do all that is necessary to put the proper systems in place to access the additional subsidies, and to encourage, through his Department, the people's housing process which will transform people into home builders.  This is a continuation of what they have historically been doing.  Unlocking the popular energies of the masses is what we have to concentrate our efforts on.  This will help people retain their dignity, while also drawing on the limited assistance that the State can offer.  I thank you, sir.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Miss Buthelezi.  Next on the list is the hon member Mr Rajbansi, who will speak for five minutes.

MR A RAJBANSI:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  I want to also congratulate the hon Minister on his appointment.  At the same time also expressing our appreciation to Minister Miller for the wonderful work that has done.

I also want to add to the sentiments expressed by the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee praising the administration.  We have Mr Nico Malan present here, and in my dealings with him I have found him to be very co-operative, helpful and shall I say customer friendly.  We have Mr Ramloutan in the gallery, a very old official.  We also want to express our appreciation to that officer.

One of the finest decisions the Minister announced was the abolishing of the Assets Committee.  Those colleagues of ours who know about the functioning of this Assets Committee, the manner in which they functioned, placed impediments on progress.  Those are the factors which made the hon Minister decide to scrap the Assets Committee.

I want to also suggest to the hon Minister, that he should re-examine the restructuring of the Provincial Housing Board.  That may be necessary.  We found the Provincial Housing Board to be very understanding, at all times, when we addressed them, especially through the Chairperson, Mr van Eck.  Mr van Eck is a very fine gentleman, always willing to be of assistance to especially the disadvantaged communities.

The hon Mr Volker referred to the sale of home ownership in former R293 towns.  I know the Government has already decided that these homes be transferred, free, but I think from a date when their loans were redeemed.  Mr Chairman, I want to suggest that even the transfer duty should be accommodated, because if you calculate everything, it should be given free.  Let the State pay the transfer duty.

But you know, housing is restitution.  Dr Buthelezi and our State President, Mr Mandela, both used the same phrase, that restitution will heal the wounds of ~Apartheid~.  I do not want to deal with the shortage of funds, etcetera, but I think that municipalities should be monitored very carefully in respect of retaining whatever they own to the State, and possibly if legislation allows it, the Province should make use of those funds to generate additional housing.

In respect of organisational structures, I am very disappointed with the upward mobility of black people.  When I say black, I mean coloureds, Africans and Indians, especially in the Durban metropolitan area, key former House of Delegates staff have joined other provinces.  I want to make an appeal to the hon Minister, where our present commission wants the Department to re-advertise a post, this is going to cause unnecessary delay in respect of the appointment of a Director from Durban.  I suggest that the Minister should persuade the commission to avoid re-advertising a particular post so that it can be filled as quickly as possible.

The hon Miss Buthelezi quite correctly stated that housing has to be a partnership between the State and private enterprise.  In this respect, I want to suggest that we examine alternate ways of financing housing.  Let us think of, for example, a provincial housing lottery.  Let us examine it.  Let us explore every avenue where we can generate funds to ensure that the poorest of the poor get housing.  The dismal picture for the next three years is that the poorest of the poor will not even be able to get what we are providing nowadays.  That is going to cause one of the biggest disappointments.  There is tremendous wisdom in the suggestion that we must give priority where priority is needed the most.  I think with getting financial wizards around him, the hon Minister will be able to generate additional funds.  There are overseas countries who are prepared to assist us with social upliftment.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute.

MR A RAJBANSI:  I want to also make an appeal that municipalities should be allowed to use, for example, rate funds as bridging finance.  I know Durban is doing it.  They are starting projects, self-help projects.  Even those who belong to the category just above the self-help group, require housing in what was formerly known as the loan to individual scheme.  I am not suggesting that loans be given, because we have no money, but a site and service scheme.  We found that catering for people who earn about R2 000 per month, will begin to house their parents and transfer people who are living in informal dwellings.

With these words, I want to congratulate the Minister.  I want to congratulate the hon Premier for making it possible to have our present Minister of Housing, it augers well for this Province, and it creates greater confidence among the cross-section of the Province's population.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  Next to speak is the hon member Mr Zuma, for eight minutes.

MR W A ZUMA: 

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

TRANSLATION:  Firstly, Chairperson, I would like to talk about building houses for people in rural areas because they are the people who voted for us as we are here.  
A way of building houses for people is using people such as those at KFC so that they too can benefit because they are also our people.  They struggle if there is no roof overhead.  Out there in rural areas there are people whose houses were blown away, blown away by various things such as tornadoes.  These people were left without a thing.  They need assistance from the Government.  Some of them are jobless, but soon, in 1999, we need these people to vote for us again.

What is bad, Chairperson, if these people are not attended to, yet they are struggling, they are in need of assistance and we are not providing it, they will curse us.  This, Chairperson, should be something that is considered and done.

Another thing, Chairperson, there are no roads in rural areas.  Even if there are, they are not being cared for, they are not being serviced.  Oh, I was thinking that Minister Ndebele is present.

When building is taking place, roads are also needed so that there would not be a problem when transporting building material.  I hope that the Ministers will take this as something important.  As I am here, I come from Mpendle where all these occurrences are a reality.  I am talking about something that is there and that I know.  At Mpendle every year a tornado strikes and people are left struggling with no one to help them but themselves, at such a difficult time where people are jobless they are like children.

People voted for the first time in 1994 because they thought they would get something better, but now they are struggling.  They are asking the Government to assist them.  I am certain that the Government also needs them, but if it needs them, it should need them even when things are difficult on their side, not because it needs them only for them to vote for it.

Lastly, we in the IFP are grateful to the two Ministers present here, Mr Miller and Mr Singh, for the work they have done, working in co-operation with their committees.  Thank you, Chairperson.  T/E

THE CHAIRPERSON: [We are grateful to the hon member].  Our next speaker will be the hon member Mr Mtetwa, who will speak for five minutes.

MR S N MTETWA:  Firstly, Mr Chairperson, let me congratulate the new broom.  I am told that the new broom sweeps better than the old one.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR S N MTETWA:  Having heard the MEC for Housing in our Province, I would like to speak on the subject of rural housing.  As a rural person, I think I must follow my colleague.  [Colleague Mr Zuma who has just spoken and said he is from the rural area of Mpendle].  I will follow that same line.

While the needs of the rural areas are very great, it is worth to note that over R600 million was spent in the rural areas of this Province on rural roads, telecommunications, electricity, water and RDP programmes - the community based Public Works programme.  This amount exceeds the amount spent last year on housing projects within the new housing policy which was largely spent in the urban areas.  Many of these programmes have been nationally driven, although town capacity has been developed in the Province.

Mr Chair, allow me to say I believe that a national policy in rural housing is to be announced by the National Minister.  I have heard the Minister of the Province when he said that it was about to be finalised.  I am saying it is about to be announced by the National Minister, shortly.

We expect that there may be more flexibility in applying the subsidy in rural areas with a possibility that housing subsidies could be drawn and used for building the roads, and installing water.  The complexities of tenure and land ownership, particularly of the land under the control of the Ingonyama is proposed to be overcome by innovative mechanisms for lodging subsidy beneficiaries onto the national database.  The progress made in terms of setting up the institutional arrangements for the implementation of the Development Facilitation Act in the Province will allow for concepts such as initial ownership to be adequate to get a subsidy.

There continues to be a great need in the rural areas.  The land issue is not an easy one.  The anticipated flexible use of the subsidy may offer new opportunities for the people to new legal mechanisms offered by the Development Facilitation Act.  Everything indicates that much can happen in the rural areas.

I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that inclusive mechanisms are set up to involve the Portfolio Committee and other stakeholders in deciding about implementation approaches to rural housing, and infrastructural development to ensure that an equitable portion of the subsidies are reserved for the rural areas, and to ensure a high level of co-ordination and co-operation within the Department of Traditional Affairs and Local Government so as to avoid misunderstanding and delay.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute.

MR S N MTETWA:  To co-ordinate with other governmental departments which are involved with infrastructure delivery in the rural areas, and seek ways in which basic health and sanitation issues, in the context of housing are considered and scaled in the rural areas.

In conclusion, Mr Chairperson, let me take this opportunity to inform the Minister of the new development which is taking place in the KwaMashu area.  I would like the Minister to take note of it.  Next to KwaMashu/Tembalihle Station informal settlements are starting to develop there.  That area has been reserved for the road.  Some leaders somewhere are encouraging the people to build a settlement there.  Your Department has been informed.  I would like the Minister to intervene, because it would appear as if something is going wrong there.  It might cause some problems within the community.  I thank you, Chair.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Mtetwa.  The next to speak is the hon member Mr Burrows, who will address the House for seven minutes.

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  I too would like to echo the words of praise given to the past Minister of Housing, and of congratulations to the present Minister of Housing on assumption of the office that he has done.  He has, I think, also performed significant changes in the very short time he has been in this Department.  Well done.

I would like to echo some of the words of the hon member Belinda Barrett in connection with the Cato Manor development project.  I have had the fortune of being involved in that for some 10 years now, and the Minister may or may not be aware that I am one of his appointees on the Development Association.  

AN HON MEMBER:  INTERJECTION

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you so much.  The point that I want to emphasise, apart from that of the hon Miss Barrett in connection with the R17 million shortfall that we really do need to find, is to signal the amazing shift that has taken place during the last six months in actual projects and development on the ground, that has occurred in the Cato Manor area.  Here one must refer particularly to the development of the Cato Crest area, which I am most familiar with, but also to Hilltop Fast Track and other successes.  One must also, Minister, note, through you Chair, the significance of the shift from provincial overall control to metro, which is exactly the direction it should be heading in.

In that connection I need to also make reference, and it is referred to partly in the Minister's speech, where he refers on page 7 to the formalisation of home ownership processes in former own-affairs developments, to the fact that he has a small task team.  He may not be aware that he has a small task team under the chairpersonship of the hon Deputy Speaker, Mr Willis Mchunu, consisting of Miss Barrett, Mr Rajbansi, myself and Councillor Mbatha.  We looked into particularly the problems relating to Wiggins One, but more particularly to Bonella, and the Bonella development project.

The kinds of problems that have been raised by the hon Mr Bhamjee are exactly the same kinds of problems we experienced.  We know from the time of our meetings and we met in some very peculiar places, and we met some amazing people, we found that it was not simply a matter of persons not taking up their rightful occupation, but also of people subleasing, of tenancies.  When I say subleasing, you can rest assured that the Department never gets any money anyway and that somebody is pocketing an awful lot of money in these areas.  But also of illegal occupation.  I am afraid you are going to find in Copesville, as we found in Bonella and certain areas of Wiggins, you are actually going to have to test it on a case by case basis.  Get in people, have them interviewed and see what the allocation should be.

I would like to turn secondly, Chair, to the concept of ownership of housing stock, and the market system.

The point I want to make, and it is one I have made during debates in previous years, is we need to move as rapidly as possible to a normal market situation in terms of our housing stock.  I can understand that there is a potential for exploitation in terms of people buying up large chunks of the property stock.  We need people to see that what they are living in, and what they will want to own is an asset that they can dispose of in the way they choose, either willing it to their descendants or selling it and alienating it themselves, in order to gain income in order to upgrade their position within the housing market.

In that connection I must also pick up a point in the Minister's speech, where the permission to occupy (the so-called PTOs) and the registerable nature of the PTO.  Yes, it is an important movement, but quite frankly, it still does not satisfy.  People are looking for title deeds.  They have raised the question I raised in the previous debate of the Ingonyama Trust Amendment Act not coming into application and the problems related to that.

May I also, sir, say that it is important that, and it has not been emphasised here, to see that the private sector still has a role to play in low cost development.  It is not involved in sufficient areas.  We need to ask the question, is it because of land unavailability close to our urban areas?  Is it because they do not wish to see themselves involved in serving of land in a kind of infrastructural development?  We have actually got to get to the point where the private sector assumes a co-operative role within the supply of housing.

In that connection I think the point made by Mr Volker is an extremely valid one.  The moment you go to the rural areas and talk about rural housing, you have got to talk about some form of urbanisation.  Urbanisation in the sense of bringing people together, because that is the only way you can make use of community assets like schools and clinics, is by bringing people together.  If you are trying to create housing in the rural areas, that are scattered in a fragmented pattern across the landscape, quite frankly does not work.  Any geographer will tell you that the pattern of development in most countries in the world has been precisely that, of people moving off their own small patches of land into villages whilst still performing farming activities on those patches of land.  We have got to move in that direction, and move into it rapidly.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute more.

MR R M BURROWS:  Thank you, Chair.  Lastly, I want to extol the virtues of the discount benefit scheme regarding home ownership.  I must make a point, I am glad the Minister has had these documents made available to us, and distributed in the House.  That one in English and Zulu, this one in English and Zulu.  I think it is very important, but it needs to go even further than that, because to the extent that there is a disappointment in the amount of houses being disposed of through this scheme, I must say to you that that is public relations.  Somebody has got to go out and sell the concept, and sell it well, and make sure it gets through.  Thank you very much indeed, Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Burrows.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Ngema, to address the House for eight minutes.

MR M V NGEMA:  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  I would like to state up-front that the Department has not been given sufficient funding this year to perform all of its functions.  Severe cuts in the housing budget means that the target of 195 000 houses by the year 2000 will have to be extended by a year or two.  We, in the Department, need an increase in funding or else by the year 2002 we will be heading for an even worse case scenario.  As a result we cannot simply accept the budget cuts lying down, but we are determined to explore all the channels in order to maintain the momentum.

Hon members, the bottom line is that without funds we cannot create housing opportunities.  In other words, innovative means will have to be found to help alleviate our problems.  One innovative way could include four homes on four sites having been built together with common walls.  In extreme cases of housing need, there could be instances where the subsidies could be combined by two or three families to share a common home.  I am aware, Mr Chairperson, that these options are being considered by the Provincial Housing Board in KwaZulu-Natal right now.  We even have a pilot project in ~Umlazi~ that will commence once the funding starts flowing again.

Mr Chairperson, the current housing subsidy scheme is being utilised to its fullest extent.  However, with the advent of the proposed new rural housing subsidies, the vast rural population of the Province will now qualify for subsidies.  Will there be separate funding by National Government to provide for the rural applicants, or will they be made to wait until all those who have been permitted to apply have been assisted?

A separate fund would seem to be the only fair way of addressing this problem.  It should also be noted that the cost of transporting building materials to remote rural areas is extremely high, and that the size of the subsidy for a rural area should reflect this significant disadvantage.

For those who have successfully applied for, and received non-rural subsidies, the road is still rocky as many retain only between R4 000 and R7 000 to build their home.  To maximise the effect of this residual, the cost of building material must be reduced to an absolute minimum.

This can only be achieved by reducing the cost of building materials, rationalising the transportation costs of these materials, and by mobilising and training the communities with the essential skills to undertake construction as community projects.

To reduce the cost of building materials, there are a number of approaches:

1.	We could facilitate building material supplies specialising in the requirements of low cost housing.

2.	We could assist communities to go directly to manufacturing sources for material and miss out the middlemen for large projects.

3.	We could encourage a private sector/community initiative to have a specialist procurement team negotiate bulk discounts on behalf of housing associations.

4.	We could allow the community to participate in the production of building materials as much as possible to reduce the labour component of the cost, as has been mentioned by other members.

These approaches will also assist in reducing the cost of transportation, as high volumes of unprocessed materials, directly from the source, without having to go via a number of handling points is significantly cheaper to transport than value added completed or semi-completed goods.

The actual labour component of the construction can be minimised in three ways:

*	By reducing the cost of skilled labour;
*	By training the local communities in the necessary building techniques; or 
*	By minimising the building skills needed to construct specific low cost homes.

For instance, by expanding the Emandleni-Matleng Youth Camp in ~Ulundi~ as a pilot for specific project skills training, as I proposed in the Premier's vote.  These must include building skills which could be provided at a very low cost to the house builder.  The same facilities could be used for training community members during the evenings and on weekends.

New high-tech concrete blocks that fit in together without mortar will enable unskilled builders to assemble houses like LEGO blocks.  These blocks can be manufactured on site.

None of the previously mentioned approaches, Mr Chairman, will solve these problems alone, but a combination of one or more in various situations will benefit the low cost home builder.

Material theft in housing support centres could be a major problem for housing projects, and some form of infrastructure and control should be encouraged by the Department of Housing....

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR M V NGEMA:  ....to ensure that the limited funds that are awarded actually end up providing the people with the homes it was intended for.  I thank you, Mr Chairman.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you very much.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Dlamini, to address the House for eight minutes.

MR F DLAMINI:  Thank you, Chairperson.  Chairperson, I would like to comment on an integrated approach to the housing problem, but before I do so, may I refer to the politics of housing in the past that have directly contributed towards the massive housing shortage that we experience today.  We often hear from people who live in the past pronouncing that during the ~Apartheid~ days the Government delivered houses to the people.  It is very unfortunate that many people have a very short memory.  They have forgotten that the policy of the ~Apartheid~ Government was to build dormitories as reservoirs of African labour, who were then known as sojourners to the industrialised first world part of South Africa.  The townships were at no stage during that period, regarded as a permanent residence for Africans.  The state of infrastructure, namely road conditions and quality water reticulation and the quality of houses bore testimony to the temporary nature of the townships.  That is why a lot of money is today spent on improving the infrastructure.  The Housing Act, No 107 of 1997, as stated by the hon Mr Naicker, is certainly going to be a major shift from the old policies, but of course, this follows on the housing policy of 1994, as stated by our hon Miss Buthelezi.

Robert Price, in his book entitled "The ~Apartheid~ State in Crisis", has the following to say, I quote:

	A third element in the deteriorating situation of the urban black population was a massive shortage in available housing.  This housing crisis was a direct consequence of ~Apartheid~ policies that were adopted at the end of the 1960s.  After World War One, permanent residence in the towns was declared the exclusive right of whites.  Black city dwellers were considered temporary residents and were accommodated in State built houses that could be rented for the period of their stay.  The Verwoerdian ~Apartheid~ doctrine added to the Stallard principles the notion that the size of the temporary black urban population should be frozen or even reduced.  

Between 1967 and 1976 not a single house for an African family was constructed.  This was a dramatic picture, especially in the city of Pretoria.  However, in the whole of the Republic only 9 808 houses were built for Africans in 1975.  What happened thereafter until 1978 was the completion of the plans that had been started in 1975.  At the time of the Soweto uprisings, there existed a housing shortage estimated at 141 000 units for families, and a backlog of 126 000 beds in hostels.  Because of that shortage, families resorted to crowding.  In 1987, seven million black South Africans were living in backyard shacks, garages, self-built tin and plastic shelters, commonly known as Mjondolo or ma Tshotshombe.  This translated to a backlog of 1,8 million housing units.  So whenever we talk about housing challenges or problems, we are looking at a backlog of 16 years, from 1978 to 1994.  Anyone who does not regard this as a legacy of the past needs to be told, "Wake up and smell the roses".  [LAUGHTER]

Chairperson, we acknowledge all the efforts that have been made, particularly in this Province to meet the housing backlog.  As a province perhaps we need to congratulate ourselves, that what has been achieved has been achieved in spite of all these problems.  But one must point out that tackling rural housing will necessitate a new approach to the arrangement of homesteads for cost effectiveness of the infrastructure, as we all know that the homesteads on the rural side are scattered all over.

It is perhaps significant to highlight the impact of a housing shortage to the entire spectrum of a person's life.  It is not just a pitiable state of affairs where people have no place of abode, but an absolute destruction of the social fabric of people.

Social workers who attempt to counsel homeless people are in actual fact attempting to do the impossible.  A state of homelessness creates a psychological feeling of worthlessness.  Homelessness destroys the will to aspire to better things in life, and good living in general.  How can a social worker counsel a person who has no roof over his or her head?  If we were to imagine that those people are still normal in spite of their circumstances, would they believe in that counselling?  A family unit is defined as a closely knit group of people who live together or share a roof.  Even a shift towards family preservation as a form of family therapy, becomes extremely difficult under the circumstances of homelessness.  To say homelessness results in family disorganisation is perhaps an understatement.

The squalor of informal settlements leaves health workers totally shocked by the spread of diseases, especially contagious diseases such as STDs.  The fight against HIV/AIDS in these areas is going to drag on because of the lifestyle.  Overcrowding and unhealthy conditions is a fertile ground for transmission of AIDS.  Clean water for consumption and for sanitary purposes is more often than not absent.  This is obviously bad news for the health of the inhabitants.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute.

MR F DLAMINI:  Chairperson, the question of land restitution and redistribution needs to be tackled sooner rather than later, as these issues are paramount in housing the nation.  Yesterday's debate on environmental affairs highlighted some very critical issues of waste and toxic disposal.  Dumping sites are commonly found not far from informal settlements, whose inhabitants tend to scrounge on the waste dumps.  This is another serious health hazard that we do not always associate with human wellness.

In conclusion, Chairperson, whilst accepting the fact that there is not much we can do, because of the reduced housing budget, what we need to do is to cut our coat according to the cloth.  What will be of utmost importance is to develop an integrated approach, including all the abovementioned fields, or departments with a major role played by Local Government, as indicated by the hon Minister Singh in his policy speech.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is up.

MR F DLAMINI:  Lastly, I would like to extend my congratulations to the Minister for his appointment.  Thank you.

AN HON MEMBER:  This is a United Nations speech.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you.  I now call upon the hon member Mr Mkhwanazi to address the House for five minutes.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  Thank you very much, Mr Chairperson.  I also want to add my voice in congratulating the Minister and supporting his vote.  He has presented a good report, and the promises that he has made, hopefully they will be put into practice sooner than later.

I also want to congratulate Mr Naicker for the good bright life he has now, compared to the life he had when he made his speech last year.  We thank God for that.

Mr Chairperson, my speech will contain more questions rather than perhaps helping the Minister.  I am not sure whether I am going to help the Minister.  First of all, the Minister talks of housing, the houses that have been built.  I want to ask the Minister, really what are these little things which look like toilets?  Unfortunately, there is a cliche that these are Madiba's houses, and I think it is unfortunate for these little things to be associated with our President.  What are they?  Is the Minister hoping to extend them, because as far as I am concerned, they are worse than what we used to call matchboxes, unless I am told something is in the offing.

Another question.  There is a serious situation of Mjondolo.  In real terms, how is the Minister proposing to unravel that problem?  I know it is not our problem, and it is not his problem, the cause is not his, but I think as the Minister responsible for housing, I would ask what is he going to do?  What is he going to do about, some refer to it as Mjondolo and some refer to it as ma Tshotshombe?  There are may across the country, but there are more in our Province.

The Minister spoke of the invasion of the land.  I disagree with the Minister.  It is not invading the land.  The people are occupying the land.  Unfortunately, they are occupying it without proper arrangements.  Invasion refers to the people, the colonialists who came and invaded our land.  So I think it is not good.  It does not sound good to our people when you say they have invaded the land.  It would be better to say that it is unlicensed occupation of the land or whatever.  [LAUGHTER]  But invasion is wrong.  I mean they are not invading.

Also when the people have no land [Hon, Chairperson, people have no land.  You are talking about building houses.  How are you going to build them with no land]?  Because this is the most important.  That is the first thing that we should have solved.  Unfortunately even our Constitution does not mention anything about land, instead it mentions property protection, something like that.  Whose property, and where did that person get it?  Unfortunately, the hon Minister Miller is not here, because we always argue.  He says I want to take away his land.  I ask him, "Where did you get the land".  He says he got it from his father.  I ask him, "Where did your father get it".  "He got it from my grandfather".  "Where did your grandfather get the land".  "My grandfather bought it".  "From whom did he buy it".  If he bought it, he bought it from a thief and a person who buys stolen goods from thieves is also guilty of theft.  [LAUGHTER]

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Half a minute left.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  Mr Minister, let us be really serious about this question of the land.  There are tracts and tracts of land.  Unfortunately, it is not our Premier's, business, because it is not under his competence.  It is a national competence, and the National Government must do something about the land.  There is land, what do they call it now?

AN HON MEMBER:  State land.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  There is State land, plenty of State land occupied by the army.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  The hon member's time is up.

MR J D MKHWANAZI:  Just as well, thank you.  [LAUGHTER]

MR J H JEFFERY:  Mr Chairman, just on a point of order.  I notice that there are only two members of the National Party present.  I wanted to find out, have they actually heeded our calls to resign?

MR V A VOLKER:  Mr Chairman, I wonder if I could ask the hon member whether the members of the ANC who have participated in this debate are still in this House?

THE CHAIRPERSON:  I am not going to entertain this debate.  I will call upon the hon member Mr Rehman to address the House for seven minutes.

MR M F REHMAN:  Thank you.  Chairperson, firstly, I would like to commend Minister Miller and his Department, and especially Mr Nico Malan for their assistance at all times to the Committee.  KwaZulu-Natal has been highly successful in the delivery of houses in the past financial year.  I would also like to congratulate Minister Narend Singh on his new position.  He has already taken the initiative to explore innovative ways to deliver houses including the possibility of replacing the "matchbox-styled" model with the thatched roofed rondavels found in rural areas.

Moreover, the Minister has also promised that he will see housing development move away from being concentrated not only in major urban centres but to also encompass rural and semi-rural areas.  Housing is a fundamental human right embodied in Section 26 of the Constitution, and every citizen has the right to have access to adequate housing.  It is also extremely important that the Housing Ministry must now ensure that the momentum built up in the housing sector over the past few years is maintained.  I know that financial constraints will hinder this.

Any analysis of the reasons for the Minister's inability to meet its target must take into account what it inherited.  If one looks at the majority of people who were neglected and left undeveloped in the rural areas, I believe, Mr Chairperson, that our Minister is doing well in improving the lives of these people.  But more still needs to be done.  KwaZulu-Natal has the largest population of rural people.  Chairperson, the needs of the rural people are very obvious, and that is the fencing of grazing land and the reconstruction and development of schools.  Surely this can be done.  It is important that the people's basic needs are met, like water, electricity, etcetera.  We have a massive task before us, but it is a task that we have to perform on a proverbial shoestring.  When faced with the constraints, we have no option but to make the money we have go further.

South Africa's housing environment was in a state of disarray.  KwaZulu-Natal has definitely delivered the goods.  We have been on the forefront of low cost housing.

A total of R520 million from R850 million housing allocation has been set aside.  This amount will affect the delivery of housing in the Province.  After 1 April 1998 local authorities will have to increase their responsibility in housing delivery.  Moreover, capacity has to be provided by the Housing Department to local authorities.  All debts incurred by the local authorities from the housing fund will now be extinguished.

Chairperson, we need to have a partnership with the Minister, the housing administration, and the members of the Portfolio Committee.  Banks continually use terms such as Masakhane and ~Ubuntu~, yet they themselves have not fully committed themselves to financing low cost housing.  Our responsibility should be to enhance the quality of life.  We cannot continue to provide people with 14 and 16 square metre houses just like dog kennels.  The Government faces justifiable criticism that only these dog kennels have been built.  Consideration should be given to larger homes, and more rural styled housing.  With rural houses, one is not confined solely to build with mortar and bricks.

The total of R570 million allocated for subsidies this fiscal year will be spent on providing about 45 000 units.  Due to the budget cut, we will have to look for ways in which to raise funds from other sources.  Moreover, we also need to push Central Government to KwaZulu-Natal's housing allocation.  The National Government has used outdated population figures which has led to Gauteng receiving a larger slice of the budget, because it was assumed that it had a bigger population.  However, the census figures show that KwaZulu-Natal is more populous than Gauteng.

In areas such as Hambanati, housing delivery has been turned around in less than a year.  Although the Department has also met with constraints such as the accessibility of land, it has become increasingly clear that the drive to provide low cost housing at the enormous scale that is required in the Province cannot succeed unless the municipalities themselves are prepared to take on the all important role of developer.  No housing project can succeed if it is based on an equal partnership between the local community, the local authority, and the developer.

The statistics are very encouraging and proves beyond a doubt that KwaZulu-Natal is at the forefront of the provinces with a proven ability to deliver.  I once more reiterate that the only way to proceed is through co-operation and synergy.  We must identify and plan joint projects and undertake more joint planning between provincial and regional authorities.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute left.

MR M F REHMAN:  Chairperson, before I conclude, I would like to make a humble plea to our hon Minister Singh to urgently attend to Lot 14144 in Newcastle.  These 55 plots were serviced way back in 1994 by the Newcastle Town Council at a cost of over R250 000.  Four years down the line nothing has been done, in spite of a shortage of housing in Newcastle.  The Newcastle Town Council over the years has tried in vain to determine which department is really the owner of these plots.  Chairperson, before these plots become unaccessible to the poor, because of rising costs, I humbly appeal to the hon Minister to attend to this urgent matter.  I would also like to caution, for the housing target to be met by the end of 1999, the Central Government's budget allocation will have to increase in the next year.

I have full faith in the Minister of Housing, and in the competence and ability of the KwaZulu-Natal Housing Board.  Thank you, Chair.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Rehman.  I now wish to call upon the hon Chairperson of the Committee, Mr Naicker, to address the House for nine minutes.

MR S V NAICKER:  Thank you, Mr Chairman.  I am pleased that our hon Premier is present here.  Four years down the line, sir, I say with respect, whilst debating in this House, we become emotional, and we have expressed our concerns.  Listening to member after member, speaking their heart about the needs of the people, and I want to single out one particular member who is on the Housing Portfolio Committee, amongst the many and that is the hon Mr Bhengu.  His heart continuously bleeds.  I wish I myself could go out and build homes with my own hands to satisfy the deep desire and the earnestness in which he handles and concerns himself with the housing problem.

My other problem is, four years down the line we have not got our administrations structured as yet.  If we have not oiled the machinery how do we function?  This is indeed a reflection on the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal.

Coming back to that very point.  As a result of the structuring of the Department, and the attitude of the Commission, we are now faced with engaging consultants whereas there has been this brain-drain from our administration.  The people are leaving for greener pastures.  The question arises, what is this costing us?  I will give you some figures.  National Housing has spent, during 1997/1998, R11,586 million, 1998/1999 R10,414 million towards consultants.  Sir, with a bleeding heart, I ask you what has this Province spent on consultants?  It is twice as much as what the National Government has spent on consultants.  We must structure our administrations and give them the capacity that is required to be able to address the needs of housing.

Having said that, sir, I just want to give you a very brief overview as far as the budget cuts are concerned, related to the Department not being satisfactorily structured.  The actual delivery process of the 144 510 approved housing opportunities, the 81 150 completed sites and the 12 744 sites.  But, I want to give you an summary, Mr Chairman, for our hon Minister to take cognisance of, and to be able to address these practicalities.  According to a summary of projects achieved by the 30 April 1998, the subsidy approved consolidation, 17 936, of that only 45% was confirmed.  The institutional subsidy which is 5 677, 80% of that has not been finalised.  The project linked subsidy 116 938, 75% of that has not been finalised.  Why, sir?  Simply because we have not got our administration in place.  It is as simple as that.

What do we do to dry the tears of our people whom we represent?  That is the most important question.  One of the tragedies that has befallen us is the 42 projects which have not been forwarded to the Board as yet, as a result of the financial cuts, and of the limping administration that we have got.

The other startling figures highlighted, which we regard as old business, amounts to R228 million.  Sir, I want to make an appeal to the hon Minister and we will give him all the assistance that is required, I hope he is listening, the R228 million which is old business, homes built, but in the minds of our people it merely means that we have got R228 million, but in the meantime it is intended merely to formalise and regularise those old projects which have been built.  It is a reflection on us.  Is it not the responsibility of National Government because we have inherited that issue.  I want to make a very strong plea that together with the Portfolio Committee we do everything humanly possible to address that particular issue as far as the R228 million is concerned.

Another area I want to bring to your notice, hon Minister, is that our money is going to a newly established National Home Builders Registration Council.  I did support this concept initially.  I am aware that the Provincial Housing Board in the past opposed this body, and despite vigorous arguments from our Province, the National Minister went ahead and endorsed legislation calling for a percentage to be paid by the builder.  Obviously in the case of our housing subsidy for the poorest of the poor, this digs deep into the housing fund.  May I respectfully ask the Minister to provide us with the amount that is in that fund, and to see to what extent it is impacting on the housing delivery.

The other logjam is the red tape attached to the Ingonyama's lack of capacity at local level, and the slow release of land.  This is especially relevant when a need for allocating individual subsidy arises.  Many members have also spoken about this matter. The National Minister stated that certain State financed sites - this is a very, very important issue - which were developed by the previous dispensation, have in some instances, become unduly expensive.  These sites are sold at historic costs which include land and the new policy guidelines were therefore introduced to determine the selling price of the serviced sites, developed during the previous administration to make them more affordable and sell them at historic costs.  Has our Department any policy in place, in line with that national policy?

Mr Chairman, the hon Minister, with all his experience, was fully aware of those thousands and thousands of serviced sites which we have.  In actual fact, on every serviced site there should be houses standing, as far as I am concerned.  The National Minister has made a policy statement, and it is incumbent upon us to use that policy and release all that land.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  One minute.

MR S V NAICKER:  Let us also encourage the local municipalities not to insist on the highest level of roads.  These roads take up space that can be used for housing.  We must look at rudimentary housing.  Narrower roads within a housing area which will allow comfortable access will reduce the cost of the infrastructure, encourage the concept of higher density in more pleasant housing structures, shared walls as in townhouse developments and reduce lot sites.  All this will result in reduced costs and enable more people to have homes.

Mr Chairman, so much has been said about housing, but again, no matter how far behind we are, let us recommit ourselves to address the needs of the people whom we represent.  Housing is an emotional issue, and this Portfolio Committee, and I in person will give the hon Minister all the assistance and the co-operation that is required.  I also appreciate his announcement today with regards to the selling of worship sites.

With that, Mr Chairman, I want to thank the Minister, the administration, and fully support his budget.  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Naicker.  In terms of the speakers list, I have Mr Mabuyakhulu to address the House for 10 minutes.

MR M MABUYAKHULU:  Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  Mr Chairperson, I think when we are debating the budget vote of Housing, it is important that we will always remind ourselves of the facts because more often than not some of us tend to forget the facts.  It will be wrong of some of us who know the facts, not to remind the hon members of them.  The hon Mr Dlamini did a great job in reminding us about the facts pertaining to the backlogs that we are faced with, with regard to the area of housing.

It is in this context therefore, Mr Chairperson, that one finds it, probably to put it mildly, unfortunate that hon members that I dearly respect and work with, like the hon Belinda Barrett, had to criticise the National Government.  She also tried to say that all of us here must not regard it as a political fight, but a fight for all the people of KwaZulu-Natal.

I think we need to take stock, Mr Chairperson.  When the ANC in 1994 or before 1994 clearly put forward before the electorate of this country its intentions to redress the imbalances of the past with regard to housing, we made our intentions absolutely clear, that we wanted to deliver a policy that would actually see to it that we deliver housing in this country.  To the best of our ability we have been able to put forward that policy.  If you listened to the hon Mr Dlamini's speech, you will realise the extent to which the damage has occurred, the level of the backlogs that we are faced with in this country.  To turn around and to expect that miracles should be performed not only is unreasonable, but it is the people who tend not to realise that we are actually dealing with a number of social issues, that as the Government of the day we need to deal with.

In the same context I regard the remarks and the comments made by the hon Ms Xulu, a member that I dearly respect, as unfortunate.  One can only classify them as comments from the heart and of not really understanding the complexities of the housing delivery issue.  To argue that we should not consider the Ministers and imply that they do not know anything because they must ask the National Government, is a kind of a statement I would not expect from the hon member.  She is in this House as being elected on the basis that she has to represent the interests of the people of this Province.  There is no way we should allow any of us to pass the buck.  We are elected to serve the population of this Province, and we cannot pass the buck.

I would like to comment on the comments made by the hon Mr V A Volker.  The hon Mr V A Volker, I must say, for the first time, has taken me by surprise.  While I was listening to him I firstly asked myself whether I was I dreaming.  For the first time, he has attempted to address the concerns of the formerly disenfranchised and the disadvantaged people of this country.  He argued the concept of the agri-villages.  I listened to him because he presented it in such a manner that it was his concept and that only he had actually studied this in Germany.  I realised that it is a concept that has already been piloted, nationally, by the hon Mr Derek Hanekom.  To present it as a new concept, I asked myself what was the intention.  For me the intention was clearly written on the wall, in response to the hon member.  The hon member does not want to see people living on the farms, and would therefore like to find a place where agri-villages can accommodate those labour tenants, whom they should remove from the farms.

Mr Chairperson, I think we must regard the question of housing in the context in which the hon member Miss Buthelezi and the hon Rajbansi has put the issue squarely.  The issue is about partnership.  The issue is about that there is no way you can expect any Government to continue to deliver on housing on its own.  It has to be in partnership.  In the first place, from the private sector, but more particularly, it has to gain the partnership of the financial institutions.  Despite the agreements that were made with the banks, the banks have been reluctant.  The fact they have not been coming to the party, clearly indicates that the banks were only paying lip service, when they said that they would like to come to the party with regard to the delivery of housing.

Mr Chairperson, instead of us wasting time pointing fingers to the top.  The people have listened to the speech of the hon Minister and he has said that he has an understanding for the reasons why the national fiscus at this stage cannot afford to increase our budget.  Let us discuss alternative and innovative ways to optimise the delivery of housing without becoming a bunch of bickering parliamentarians. Instead we must use our capacity and our ideas on ways to increase the housing delivery.  There is no doubt, and we all agree that there is a great need for housing delivery.  We should all go out and look for alternative measures to augment the Government's contribution in the field of housing.

With these few remarks, Mr Chairperson, I thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, hon member.

MR B H CELE:  Point of order, Mr Chairperson.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Yes, can we hear the point of order.

MR B H CELE:  The leader of the PAC has not reported in this House that he has increased his number and his membership here.  [LAUGHTER]  Thank you.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  That is not a point of order.  I rule it out of order.  I have pleasure at this point in time to call upon the hon Minister to respond to the debate.  Mr Minister please.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.  At the outset I would like to thank all the hon colleagues that have participated in this debate, and I thank you for the constructive manner in which you have approached this debate.

The Portfolio Committee under the chairpersonship of the hon Mr S V Naicker has done a good job.  But listening to some of the members, who I do believe are members of the Portfolio Committee, there is need for us in the Portfolio Committee to spend more time on enlightening all the members of the Committee, on the way housing subsidies can be obtained from or either through the Housing Board.  What policies are in place and so on and so forth.  We need to spend considerable time, possibly a whole day, with not only the members of the Portfolio Committee, but with anybody that is interested so that we can educate ourselves with the process.

Mr Chairman, I would like to start with the question of the budgetary constraints.  I think there has been a common threat that has been permeating this particular debate.  While the hon Mr Mabuyakhulu indicates that we should not complain about the allocations that we have received from the National Department of Housing, I would like to remind him, and all hon colleagues, that the National Minister of Housing, herself, is deeply concerned about the allocation given to the National Department of Housing from Central Treasury.  We all share this concern with her, and we are collectively as MECs of all the provinces trying to support her.  We are going to support her in a quest to obtain more funds from Treasury.

In fact, she went so far as indicating during her national debate in Cape Town that she believed that housing was not being given a fair slice.  It is probably unfair for Mr Mabuyakhulu to say that only we in this Province are complaining.  May I just add that if we had to look at the allocation that we have received and if we had received our allocation on the latest population census figures which was 1996, we would have received at least R13 million more.  We have to look at the census figures that were reflected in the National Department's own annual report, but they did not follow that.  Because of pressure from some of the other provinces, performance was not a major factor when they were making their allocations, because if performance was considered then we would have featured very, very high in obtaining even a bigger slice.

Notwithstanding that, I hear what the hon members are saying.  We have to make the best of the limited funds that are available to us, and we have to ensure that we try and get maximum utilisation of those funds.  I can give the House the assurance that my Department and I are committed to ensure that that happens.  We will also be looking for innovative ways to stretch the Rand, innovative ways to ensure that the top structure gets increased from the dog boxes, and the kennels that hon members have described them as, to liveable units.

I take the point made by the hon Mr Dlamini.  He very rightly referred to the social considerations that we have to take into account when looking at housing.  We must not just look at housing as providing a roof and four walls, for four or five people to live in 12 to 15 square metres.  It is just not on.  Even if we have to reduce the infrastructure that has been provided, we as the Department have to ensure that a decent sized top structure, which may not be a house in itself, but which may be a starter house, which people can improve on, be provided.

Mr Chairman, the hon Mr Naicker raised certain concerns.  One of them being the question of funding for rural housing.  This was an issue that I raised at the very first MINMEC meeting, because when this policy comes into being, and I must just correct the hon Mr Mtetwa, it is not going to be announced soon because there are certain things that still have to be finalised.  Discussions are still being held with the Chief Registrar of Deeds, and there are certain matters that will have to be tied up, but when we have finalised this chapter on rural policies, the National Minister will announce the introduction of the new subsidy.  Then it is up to us and the MEC in this Province here, to announce in our own time, as and when human and financial resources are available for the introduction of the new subsidy instrument in the Province.

I have taken this up at MINMEC, because I am concerned that this year we will have no funding at all to promote housing in the rural areas, because all the funds, as I indicated earlier, have been allocated.  But within the National Housing budget, R2,88 billion was allocated to provinces.  There is still a considerable amount of money left that has not as yet been allocated.  Included in this amount is an amount of R90 million which was allocated for hostel upgrading.

At MINMEC, I fought for a fair share of the R90 million for KwaZulu-Natal.  There are only three provinces in the country that have these hostels, and where these hostels needed to be upgraded, but there was overwhelming support, despite the objections by KwaZulu-Natal, that that money should be redirected to bulk infrastructure.  There are certain provinces, and one is the favourite province of National Government, that we have all been talking about here in this House, that overspent or that spent on bulk infrastructure when they did not even have the money.  As a result, National Government has now been saddled with debts from developers and from people who have completed these projects, and National Government has made an appeal that the R90 million should be used to offset the debts that have been incurred by those provinces that should not have actually incurred those debts.

HON MEMBERS:  INTERJECTIONS

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  When I objected as MEC for KwaZulu-Natal, I was told by the other members, "You chaps from KwaZulu-Natal always come here with your own fancy ideas.  Why do you not think nationally".  This is not a point about thinking nationally or thinking provincially, it is asking for a fair slice of the cake, which I think we people in KwaZulu-Natal deserve.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Every hon member on this side of the House, and on that side of the House would have supported the stance that I took.  Just as much as the hon Madam Belinda Barrett was told by the National Minister of Housing that the allocation to KwaZulu-Natal was agreed to by all the MECs.  This was not so.  My colleague - and I confirmed this with him - objected to the way this whole formula was worked out, but he was outvoted.

It is good enough for some of us to say while MINMEC agreed, and I think the National Minister said, "Well, MINMEC agreed".  Well, not every member, individual member in MINMEC agrees to the policies that are passed at those meetings, and this is something hon members must understand.  When I attend as an MEC for KwaZulu-Natal I put the best case forward for KwaZulu-Natal, because I believe that is the responsibility I have, not only for the Department, but for the people of KwaZulu-Natal.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Mr Chairman, the hon Mr Naicker has spoken about consultants, and administration.  This is something I will have to examine.  As I said in the beginning, I have only been in the saddle for six weeks, maybe I have got a slow horse that is not getting me to the finishing point fast enough.

MR R M BURROWS:  Just do not ride the Minority Front.

MR N SINGH: (Minister of Agriculture and Housing):  Do not ride the Minority Front.  But I will look into that.  I am concerned about the number of consultants that are being engaged.  I have asked for a report on the number of consultants and on how much they are being paid and for what they are being paid, and whether or not the capacity does not exist within the Department for officials within the Department to perform the very functions that we are engaging consultants for.  I will report to this House through the Portfolio Committee when that information becomes available to me.

According to my colleague Minister Miller, the hon Mr Bhamjee really surprised him this year during this budget debate, because he was not as critical as he was last year.  I appreciate the comments that he made, and I appreciate the fact that the Housing Board, of which he is a member, is doing so much work.  He indicated to this House, and I want to remind members from that side of the House that he, from that side of the House, indicated to us that KwaZulu-Natal was the best performing province when it comes to housing. They were highly commended by the National Department of Housing.  I think that is a feather in the cap for the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.

He raised the issues of big construction companies and sweat equity.  The hon Mr Volker also raised that issue, and this is something that we really need to promote if we are to succeed in getting a bigger top structure in this House.  People need to be trained.  We have got to provide the capacity.  We have these housing support centres.  I do not believe they have been functioning adequately, but we need to ensure that these housing support centres function to such an extent that the local people will be able to make their own blocks, and build their own homes so that at least the labour costs will be much lower and they can put their sweat equity into the labour costs.  We have got to go for that, and I agree with the hon Mr Volker and Mr Bhamjee that sweat equity is the way to go.

Miss Barrett, of course, Mr Chairman, always fights for the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.  She has made a significant contribution towards the Housing Board, and the Portfolio Committee.  She has a wealth of knowledge in housing and a wealth of knowledge in French as well, because I see she is always looking at her French dictionary.  I thank Miss Barrett for her comments, and I thank her for always being there in the forefront and putting up a fight for us here in KwaZulu-Natal.  It is sincerely appreciated.

The question of agri-villages as raised by the hon Mr Volker is something that we will examine.  I am sure the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee and other members of the Portfolio Committee have taken note of that.  We need to initiate some debate on that, whether it is going to be something that is going to work in this Province to ensure housing delivery.

Ms Xulu, thank you very much for your comments, for the interest you are showing, and for being a peacemaker in areas where housing is a problem.  I know you have referred the question of problems in the Malakazi area to me.  I did assure you that we will attend to that and hopefully in a week or two we will visit the people in the Malakazi area to try and address their problems.  Thank you for bringing that problem to my attention.

The hon Mr Rajbansi is not in the House at the moment.  He raised the issue of trying to find innovative ways for additional funding.  Yes, possibly we will have to examine lotteries.  We will have to look at these things, but I really need the Portfolio Committee to apply their minds and advise me on this.  I am going to impress upon the Housing Board to also try and look and advise me on innovative ways of obtaining more funds.

In as far as provincial funding is concerned, may I also inform the House that we are going to be using provincial funds in addition to the R570 million from National Government.  We will be able to generate, in this Province, R19,6 million which is owing to us from the national level for expenditures that were incurred in 1996.  That money is still owing to us.  With the extinguishing of national loans we stand to gain some R23 million which was due to the National Housing Board.  Rents from former National Housing Board assets will accrue to this Province, and in total we estimate that we will be able to secure in the order of some R90 million which will boost this R570 million, and which will go towards housing delivery.  Mr Naicker these are funds that we are hoping to generate within the Province.

The hon Mr Zuma, I thank him for making his maiden speech here, and I thank him for the manner in which he spoke from his heart, disclosing his concern for his people in the Impendle area, and particularly his concern for the people in the rural areas.  He raised the issue of roads.  Unfortunately, my colleague the Minister of Transport is not here, but I think what we can glean from that, the important issue is that we need integrated rural development.  The hon Mr Felix Dlamini also referred to that.  We need to get many departments involved, if we are to ensure that rural development takes place at its maximum potential, and the Department of Roads is going to be very, very important in that regard.

The hon Mr Mtetwa, I can assure you that when this rural housing policy is finalised and we have written the final chapter on it, workshops will be held in the rural areas with the traditional leaders.  There will be interaction at many levels so that, as you quite rightly indicate, there should be no misunderstanding within the communities and with the traditional leaders in those areas.

I will investigate the issue of KwaMashu that you raised.  I will investigate that.  My Deputy Director-General is present and I am sure he has taken note of that particular issue.  We will look into that and we will report back to you.

I would like to thank the hon Mr Burrows for his contribution and for his participation in the Cato Manor Development Association.  I received an invitation to attend a meeting that will take place in a few weeks time, which I think the hon colleague Miller has also received, and that is where I saw your name as being one of the participants.  You are quite right, the problems in Bonella are the same as the ones that I referred to earlier on in Copesville.  We have developed a kind of policy to deal with these illegal tenants, and absent landlords.  Community committees will be structured in those areas to help us.  I thank you for your participation there, and yes, you are quite right, ownership is the way we should go.  Many people do not realise that owning a house is probably the biggest asset that any one of us will ever have in all our lives.  We need to promote that very, very actively, not only as a Department, but as a House.  The private sector need to be fully involved.  They are not involved to the extent that we would like them to be involved, particularly those in the banking sector.  We will have to speak to them at some stage and ensure that we get their full participation.

The hon Mr Ngema, thank you very much for those innovative suggestions that you made to the House.  You also raised the question of rural housing and funding.  This is something that we really need to take up at the national level.  The most important issue you raised was the issue of training and capacity building, so that people themselves can build their own homes.  This is something we need to focus on.

The hon Mr Dlamini, I have referred to the social aspects that evolve around housing, and also the environmental considerations.  It is extremely important, because I think as we drive around many of the urban areas we see the very things that you spoke about, especially the so-called Mjondolos that somebody else referred to.

The hon Mr Mkhwanazi, land is an issue, and I am glad my colleague Minister Miller is here, because he is the one that is actually dealing with land matters.  I am sure that we will take this matter up with him.

The hon Mr Rehman, I will certainly look into Lot 14144, Newcastle.  I will report to you on those 55 plots, because we do not want plots to stand unused for four years and nothing is being done.  I have made reference to the hon Mr Mabuyakhulu.

Lastly, I would like to thank once again all the members of the House for the manner in which they participated in this debate.  I am looking forward to very close interaction with the Portfolio Committee.  I have not had the opportunity to interact with them very closely.  I have only attended one of the meetings, but I give you my assurance, from the Ministry and from the Department that we will do everything in our power to meet the targets that we have set for ourselves in terms of housing delivery.  

Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr Chairman, for the way you have
conducted the proceedings.

HON MEMBERS:  Hear! Hear!

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Thank you, Mr Minister.  That brings us to the end of our Committee Stage for today.  At this point I will hand over to the Speaker to conclude our proceedings.

	THE BUSINESS OF THE COMMITTEE SUSPENDED AT 18:51
	THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE RESUMED AT 18:52

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  I request the Deputy Chair of Committees to make a report.

THE CHAIRPERSON:  Mr Speaker, the Committee of Supply has met, and considered the votes on Local Government, and on Housing.  The Committee has not concluded its business, and I wish to request permission for it to sit on the next sitting day of this House.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  That brings us to the close of today's business.  I was informed that the Premier has had to rush of somewhere.  He has not left any report with me.  Mr Minister.

MR P M MILLER: (Minister of Finance and Local Government):  Sir, just to report, the Premier has had to leave to meet a speaking engagement in Durban at 7:30 for which he would like to lodge his apologies.

THE DEPUTY SPEAKER:  Thank you.  That therefore concludes today's business, and we will adjourn until tomorrow at 14:00.  The House stands adjourned.

	HOUSE ADJOURNED AT 18:53 UNTIL
	14:00 ON WEDNESDAY, 27 MAY 1998


