Chairperson, I just want to ask the hon member if it so that she is a former member of this ... [Interjections.]
The member has already indicated that she will not take a question. You may continue, hon Van Wyk.
Your information is wrong. We can talk about that outside. My past is known to everybody and I have dealt with it. Maybe it is time for others to do the same. [Applause.]
Chairperson, it is clear that we still face challenges in this regard. As long as we have media reports on incidents like the Reitz Four, as long as reports of human rights abuses masked as orientation practices at our institutions of learning exist or we hear of state officials undermining the human dignity of citizens by providing bad or inadequate services, as long as people are using derogatory terms to describe one another, then we are not there yet.
The police are the protectors of our rights as citizens. While we all support our law enforcement agencies in their efforts to fight crime, this needs to be done within the parameters of the law and without affecting the rights bestowed on citizens.
In this regard, the ANC government introduced and this House passed legislation on the Independent Police Investigative Directorate and on the Civilian Secretariat of Police. That will strengthen the civilian oversight and accountability of the Metro Police agencies and the South African Police Service.
Chairperson, there are those - also in this House - who masquerade as the founders and guardians of the concept of human rights. This was again demonstrated today, especially during the time for statements. These people never miss an opportunity to present themselves as morally superior to the rest of us. But, hon Chairperson, what does their own record say about this matter?
We are in the fortunate position where we don't have to guess or presume. We can just look at their record in this House, the city and the province. I will limit myself to a couple of examples, all of them quite recent.
Chairperson, I once again would like to make use of the words of Kofi Annan to introduce this part of my argument. He said:
The right to development is the measure of the respect of all other human rights. That should be our aim: a situation in which all individuals are enabled to maximise their potential, and to contribute to the evolution of society as a whole.
Yet, Chairperson, we see demonstrated, not only in words, but in the strongest possible action how the DA vote time and again against any form of progressive and empowering legislation in this House. Let me mention a few examples: labour legislation, the Firearms Control Act and education legislation.
How often have they not recently made a noise around the National Health Insurance plan? I could not agree more with hon Michaels when she said in this House just before me that where services are not delivered there are no human rights.
If one follows the argument of Kofi Annan, stated above, then one would agree that the provision of basic services, especially to those in our poor and underdeveloped communities, is urgent and forms part of giving life to the Bill of Rights. This is especially true in informal settlements.
Gavin Silber, co-ordinator of the Social Justice Coalition, SJC - a Khayelitsha-based community organisation, whose members live in informal settlements - makes some interesting observations in an article in the Mail & Guardian. The SJC was established to address the scourge of crime in informal settlements, but its primary campaign focused on access to safe and clean sanitation. He says:
Although the link between safety and sanitation may seem tenuous to those with a toilet and running water in their homes, our members feel that they are most at risk when needing to relieve themselves.
The article then explains how the SJC tried in vain to engage positively with the City of Cape Town. The SJC, through an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, requested the release of an internal investigation into the Makhaza toilet saga.
The article further states that:
The report when released, showed that the city itself had found that insufficient consultation had taken place before Makhaza's "loos with views" were constructed, that residents were given Hobson's choice and that the regulations in the Water Services Act "were not complied with".
Hobson's choice, for who that do not know, is a choice that you can make freely, but it is only a choice of one thing. You either accept it or you don't, because there is no alternative.
Chair, I would like to ask the hon Leader of the Opposition in the House whether they would have accepted this situation had it happened in Rondebosch, in Camps Bay, or in Bellville. I would like to ask them whether they would have accepted this situation if it were their mother, their wife, sister or daughter who had to use those toilets.
With apologies to Paul Farmer, if this question of access to sanitation and basic services is considered a human right, then who is considered human enough to have that right?
Gavin Silber then continues and highlights the much-publicised 70% drop in crime over five years in one of the most dangerous areas in Cape Town, namely Khayelitsha. This statement was issued and made by the DA, claiming that, under their rule of the city and the province, they had succeeded in bringing crime down by an astonishing 70%. Just imagine what they can do in the rest of the country! It later emerged that that figure was in fact only 24% because the DA had failed to incorporate two of the three police stations in Khayelitsha into these astonishing figures. It currently stands at 17%. Do they even know that there are three police stations in Khayelitsha?
Despite numerous requests that they should formally retract the statement, the DA refused and, to this day, its heading appears on their website. It is an absolute shame!
So, brace yourselves. Your right to accurate and reliable information will be nonexistent under a DA government. Or is it like Steve Biko said:
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
[Applause.]
The hon Chikunga, in her statement, highlighted ... [Interjections.]
You can make as much noise as you want to, it does not even bother me.
Order, hon members! We do not need ongoing, ball-by-ball commentary. Leave that to the sports commentators. You may continue, hon member.
When in danger or in doubt, run around in circles, scream and shout!
In her statement today, the hon Chikunga highlighted the following: On 16 March 2011, the DA provincial health spokesperson, Faiza Steyn, was quoted in the Sowetan as having said that the pregnant woman from Khayelitsha was turned away from the Michael Mapongwana Hospital because -
'... she was not in active labour ... She was advised to come back later when she felt contractions, but she never did. The nurses had done nothing wrong.' She said most of the time pregnant women came to the hospital thinking that they were about to give birth, when it was a false alarm.
'It was unfortunate that she gave birth a few hours later,' Steyn said.
This is a ridiculous, dangerous and fatal statement. Or, is it a case for the DA of - now in the words of Paul Farmer -
If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?
It is a case of, if you are from Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Langa, Atlantis, then bad treatment or no treatment or all is not wrong in the eyes of the DA provincial and city government.
The budget allocation and spending in the City of Cape Town is another example of some groups' rights being more important than those of others. In the wealthy suburbs of Cape Town we see cycle lanes being built, while in Langa, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu, people do not even have pavements to walk on.
The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, yet we have seen the DA government in this province demolishing churches in Khayelitsha. Or is it a question of who is considered human enough for these rights?
The right to the protection and promotion of cultural life is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights yet, in the Western Cape, funding for the minstrels' celebration of the rich history of slaves is stopped by the DA government.
In the by-laws capital, otherwise known as Cape Town, where even your dog's barking is regulated, by-laws and the enforcement thereof are used to seriously undermine the rights of our people and, in many instances, it is nothing more than harassment.
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police was witness to hawkers trading on an open field. They were not trading on the street, or in a business area, but Metro Police then confiscated their goods, all of it perishable. This happened on a Wednesday. Now the by-law determined that they could only receive their goods back on the following Tuesday, after paying a R100 fine. Not only does the DA take food from families, they also deny citizens the opportunity to make an honest living.
Chairperson, we cannot allow the DA or any other counter-revolutionary force to roll back the gains for which many laid down their lives ... [Interjections.] ... and which we are still daily working to achieve. [Interjections.]
Order, hon members! Hon member, could you take your seat, please.
Hon members, while it is in order to interject, the House cannot degenerate into a state of being out of control, where there is shouting, laughter and unparliamentary behaviour. I caution members: If it happens again, I will have to call you by name. You may continue, hon member.
Thank you, Chairperson.
We call on national Ministries to use Minmec meetings to keep these MECs in the Western Cape accountable for not providing the basic rights guaranteed in our Constitution.
[Inaudible.]
I am so glad the hon Kohler-Barnard made that interjection. It provides me with the opportunity to say this: The defence of the DA is the "whataboutery" defence. What about toilets in Gauteng? What about service delivery in the Eastern Cape? What about housing in the North West?
The Northern Ireland Nobel Peace Prize laureate, John Hume, coined the phrase "whataboutery". It refers to the art of diverting attention from uncomfortable questions about one's own performance to that of another's ... [Applause.] ... as if that excuses the provincial government from meeting its legal obligations to provide these services and to be held accountable for not doing so.
They love to quote - and their spokesperson has done so again this afternoon - from the Universal Household Access to Basic Services Report compiled by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The report uses household surveys - now listen carefully - conducted between 2001 and 2006. The DA only took over the City of Cape Town in the middle of 2006. These performances of service delivery that they so proudly proclaim are actually ANC achievements! [Applause.]
But, hon Chairperson, it seems that the DA spokesperson does not allow the truth to deter her from a good sound bite.
About the Khayelitsha infant deaths the party to my left has made huge noise, and we share that concern as well as the concern about the deaths of babies in the Eastern Cape. But let me talk to you about Khayelitsha infant deaths caused by diarrhoea-related infections. In 2010, 58 deaths in Khayelitsha occurred in children under the age of five years. In 2009, 60 children died. That is double the city average and 10 times more than that of the city's affluent southern suburbs. It was found - and denied - that it is so because of a lack of resources and neglect of sanitation infrastructure and maintenance.
In the words of Roger Nash Baldwin -
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.
We will tirelessly continue to do this, so as to ensure that we reach that time when we can all say that rights are not given to you, but that they are that which no one can take away from you. Indeed, together we can and should do more to achieve our rights. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.