Thank you, House Chairperson. Hon Minister, my question is in two parts. The first part deals with the Umthatha Airport. In your budget for this Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period there is an item that pops up of R450 million to upgrade the Umthatha Airport. It is in the category of unbudgeted or unforeseen expenses.
Our understanding is that the Umthatha Airport used to be owned by the Eastern Cape provincial government. Then, the military took it over for a certain period and began an upgrade. The upgrade was not completed. Suddenly, there is R450 million allocated to your Transport budget for the upgrade of the Umthatha Airport.
Could you explain to this House who currently owns the Umthatha Airport because we are investing money in it? And, is this R450 million the money that comes from the Defence budget that has been moved, in the sense of a virement, to Transport in order to do the work on behalf of the Defence Force, or on behalf of the Eastern Cape government? How is this occurring? It is a lot of money. It is nearly half a billion rand.
The second part of the question regards the R123-billion Passenger Rail Agency of SA, Prasa, contract for new trains - 7 226 units of rolling stock. We understand that Treasury has capped that to only R40 billion out of the R123 billion for the first 10 years. With only eight years remaining, that means if you carry on at a rate of R4 billion a year you get R76 billion. Does this mean that we do not have the funds to pay for the full R123 billion? How do you explain that for the bulk of the period we are only going to spend R40 billion? That will not buy 7 226 units of rolling stock; rather a whole lot less. Is the ANC unable to fulfil the promise it made to purchase all-new trains for South Africa? Thank you.