Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the hon member from Cope is trying to cut me short. I know that they are very scared of what I might say, but I assure them I won't have anything to say about Cope. As Deputy Ministers, we are counted as half, so this is just half a response. [Laughter.]
I would like to welcome the statement by the hon member of the UDM who condemned what appeared to be an act of road rage by a taxi driver. However, in welcoming that - and we must indeed condemn all acts of road rage and bad behaviour on our roads - I think we must also be careful to not overdemonise the taxi sector. We must neither overromanticise nor overdemonise it.
Our statistics show us that taxi drivers are not the worst offenders in terms of accidents, deaths and serious injuries on our roads, given the kilometres they travel and the amount of time they spend on the road. There are 200 000 jobs directly involved in the minibus sector and probably about half a million jobs overall are offered in the sector. There has been a very significant decline in violence in this quite volatile sector - I think we should acknowledge that - as a result of democratisation and formalisation.
However, there are still some worrying signs of violence. Just in the past few weeks we have witnessed some of these. What do we need to do? We often blame the bad behaviour of taxi drivers, but maybe bad behaviour has to do with the infrastructure in our towns and cities, which is not good for public transport. They often pull over, stop and pick up passengers, drop them off, and so on, because the roads have not been designed for decent public transport. They have been designed for private car users. So, we need to transform these things in order to help the taxi industry transform, and we are making progress.
The hon Ollis referred to elderly African women in a rather disparaging way. Notwithstanding that, he is correct to say that there are some serious challenges when it comes to the Metrobus Service in the City of Tshwane and in a number of other cities. I am not going to overpoliticise this. I could easily do that because I can point to some DA-controlled towns in which the bus services are also having serious crises. But I am acknowledging that there are problems we need to address and, as the Department of Transport, we are doing that. [Applause.]
That concludes Ministerial responses.
Mr Speaker ...
Hon member, please take your seat until I recognise you. In terms of the Rules of the National Assembly, the seventh edition, it states on page 33: "In terms of a House decision taken on 25 October 2005, Ministerial responses have been increased to a maximum of six." [Applause.]
Mr Speaker, may I address you on that?
Yes, please. What I just suggested to Mr Xaso is that we actually need to formalise it through the Rules Committee ... [Interjections.] ... so that the Rules are adapted appropriately, and do not rely on a decision of the House dating back to 25 October 2005. [Interjections.]
Hon member, that can be addressed to the Rules Committee. This is not the Rules Committee. I was simply referring to the Rules we have before us. [Interjections.]