Chairperson, we agree with this report, its observations and recommendations and that this is a just depiction of what we saw in KwaZulu- Natal. The only thing left to do now is for the department to implement what we recommended and my true hope is that the department will take this report as seriously as we in the committee took it when we were writing it.
We made some very important observations and my fellow colleagues of the portfolio committee have mentioned but I still feel the need to highlight just a few. We spent hours and days in committee meetings and in committee rooms; we talk about projects and we see numerous reports about one thing and the next.
We are bombarded by explanations of our Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme, Casp, Ilima-Letsema, Recapitalisation and Development Programme, Recap, Rural
Infrastructure Development Programme, RIDP, Rural and Community Development Programme, RCDP, Community Property Association, CPA, One Household One Hectare Programme, Strengthening Relative Rights for People working on farms, SRR, Agri-Parks, Animal and Veld Management Programme, AVMP, River Valley Catalytic Programme, RVCP, to name but a few are supposed to be working.
And we have received beautiful reports of these projects and we see how paper targets are met every single time but on closer inspection, as we did on this oversight, we see that the reality on the ground tells a different story.
A prime example of this and speaking of KwaZulu-Natal specifically is the Ndumo Farmer Production Support Unit, FPSU; on paper this project is excellent. We even saw pictures to say that this was a success but on inspection of this project, we saw that it was in total disarray. Farmers were planting cabbages yet the farming implements that were given were to plant, harvest, clean and pack potatoes.
The access to these markets were promised and to this day they have not yet been realised and this - as colleagues have mentioned - is one of the hundreds of projects that the department is implementing. And this is proof of the sector oversight model of this Parliament that is failing and it is failing our people.
We need to add more site visits. Reports on performance information are not sufficient as an oversight. Paper targets without depicting the quality of these targets will never improve our service delivery.
When we come to site visits, we see that the reality is not as our paper targets and as our reports have reflected; we need more oversight, more opportunities like this and we need to hold our departments more accountable for what they are doing to our people.
And on a disconcerting note, if you do not go on oversight like this and we take the department along for the ride, they will most probably never get to see their own projects and they will be misled by officials of provincial departments that lie blatantly to their faces.
But, as I conclude, we visited a number of border municipalities and projects and we saw with our own eyes that the redline fencing in these border municipalities are not sufficient and are not adequate even though the department says they are adequately maintained and they are sharp.
Afrikaans:
Hulle is reg so!
English:
My fear is that what is happening in Limpopo will next be happening in KwaZulu-Natal. But, other than that, we support this report. Thank you. [Time expired.]