Hon Chairperson, allow me to thank all our protection officers, emergency officers and the staff all over the country. Never before have we been exposed to such high levels of risk and violence directed against citizens and infrastructure in South Africa.
At the beginning of this sixth Parliament, two reality departure points matter and they are; the repeated phrase during Sona that the detail will come and the fourth appointed Minister of Transport in just three years. For the transport sector, this is the moment where the detail on change, improvements and new direction should flourish and not be contested with so many factors which interrupt, undermine and disinvests particularised goals and scope for progress.
The DA and team transport will be constructive and contributing drivers of the needed change to improve mobility in South Africa. Meaningful ideas of all my predecessors will not go lost since we have studied and filtered out the best ideas from the past five terms. We have gained, Minister, not Facebook but face-to-face knowledge and understanding from technical experts, listened to sector specialists and stakeholders like taxi, bus, train and truck drivers. We have built relationships which I and together with my team will remain connected to and expand.
Three burning aspects with a common factor clearly stand out; the protection of our transport users, assets and funding. Users pay for a ride with a ticket or fuel and they need to feel safe. There are needs which should be acted upon, instead of explaining why over R640 million wasn't spent in the 2018-19 financial year by this department.
As reform essentials in mobility, the DA will promote regular joint- committee meetings between transport and police. This will provide a platform to engage on the current unacceptable levels of violence against users and the destruction of infrastructure.
With more than R1,3 billion not being spend by the police in 2018-19. We most certainly do have a couple of suggestions on how to protect our people, trucks, busses, trains, motorists and infrastructure.
We will push for the merging of Transnet and Prasa since more than R1 billion is exchanged every year between the two entities. This is while they both use the same rail lines, platforms and signal equipment yet cross invoice each other when everything belongs to the same government. By saving R1 billion every year the DA could've purchased 250 train sets and enough railway lines to build the Moloto Rail. However, reality links to fact that not a single meter of rail track was purchased in the last five years. We remain adamant and determined that the DA-led Western Cape should run Metrorail.
We will apply pressure to merge all controllers like the Railway Safety Regulator and others directly under the Department of Transport. Their dependency on income through licenses and fines compromise their function. Millions of rands can be saved in this way. A rand spent should be a rand improvement. We cannot
pay for stuff which never find purpose, let alone collapse. Therefore, the DA will promote the establishment of a national transport infrastructure inspectorate to mitigate risks of all public bridges, walkways, platforms and stations and a specialised audit-like regulator with inspectors to control everything from tender specifications to maintenance terms.
Given the growing number of entities with escalating fiscal risk to our economy year by year, less value end up in tangible improvement that benefit the very people who provided the funding. A drastic change in mindset is required to acknowledge the public as customers and not as convenient bailout partners when things do not work out.
The financially burdened Road Accident Fund can be fixed by amendments to the current Act including the concerning occurrences of greedy practitioners. The DA will soon present 15 recommendations on how to immediately stop the financial bleeding of this ill-managed administration. Our position on the lapsed Road Accident Benefit Scheme, RABS, Bill in its current form remain unchanged because the already ballooned fuel levy
cannot be burdened with a dual compensation system. It is also immoral to indemnify the wrongdoer and unconstitutional to deny someone the right of access to common law.
Instead of hawking Road Accident Benefit Scheme to justify under settlement, lawless behaviour on our roads should be pursued. Less deaths and injuries will naturally over time result in fewer claims. In summary, we are looking forward to this term as an opportunity to make mobility count as a catalyst to fix and improve our economy and to make the DA count as a driver of reform essentials and every citizen count as valuable beneficiary towards establishing one South Africa for all. I thank you.