Hon members, I prefer greeting people when I meet them for the first time. I am not very good at saying goodbye. However, I want to express my appreciation for every time we, as the NCOP, have spent together.
When I first came to Cape Town, it was a very sudden ruction in my life. I went through a rough time during my first six months here. I found, amongst you, friends. I found, amongst you, people who would judge without even asking first. However, I will always appreciate two women - and for today, I will say they are two white women - who walked into my office, one day, asked me to sit down and tell them what had happened. I must say, I will always appreciate the hon Labuschagne and the hon Van Lingen, because I remember it was the first time, I could sit with women and say, actually it is better that it is my pigs that have died on my farm and not my grandson. I had had to rush here and leave my grandson with a domestic worker because I was totally unprepared to come here. So, I want to thank you for being there.
There was also another woman, the former Chief Whip of the NCOP, who walked in and said that whatever the problem was, we are women and we will stand by you. We will try and understand.
It is when you have walked the difficulties that you understand when another human being gets into a tight spot. It is when you have fought that you understand what fighting is all about. It is when you have felt the pain that you know that to inflict the pain can only be done by cowards because they transfer that which is in them. So, I want to
say that, on a very personal note, it is difficult for me to say goodbye to some of you.
I have also enjoyed the ability of the NCOP to come together and to become family when they are needed to do so. I have often enjoyed the rough debates because the rough debates, depending on who you are, actually show you the blind spots you might have. In politics, it is also always good to hear about your weaknesses, to be forced to look at things you might not ordinarily want to look at.
I agree with the hon Labuschagne. It is very, very necessary for the NCOP to go back to where we started. I remember our first workshop. It was where we interrogated our constitutional mandate. When we walked out of that workshop, we said that intergovernmental relations was going to be our mantra; we must make sure that we do that. We said that co-operative governance is the business of the NCOP. We went all over the show to try and convince others who, like me when I stepped into the NCOP, did not understand its workings.
We have, to some extent, moved the perception about this House of Parliament, a little bit. We know we can move the NCOP to become the House that gets the attention and the respect of South Africans, because it is through the provisions of the Constitution, setting up
the NCOP, that the protection of the provinces and the people in the provinces can, in fact, gain ground.
Those new members of the NCOP and those who will return, if we ever get to be warriors on behalf of our people and gather our wits and come out with that legislation that we need in order to really exercise our powers in terms of sections 100 and 139, we will have done that big thing. If we ever appreciate ... I know that the hon Motlashuping once raised the matter very roughly, of why we, from this House, weren't being taken into the executive. However, I think it is a good thing that members of this House are not members of the executive, because the deliberateness of excluding this House from the executive is a power that we should be exercising very thoroughly.
It is when we mature, as a democracy, as South Africa, that we will really being to appreciate the power of this House. This House is powerful. It just does not understand its power. It does not understand its hold on the executive. It does not understand its responsibility towards provinces. It does not understand its responsibility towards local government. If we get there, some day, we will be very proud.
I am very proud of the accident that brought me to the NCOP. I am very proud to leave the NCOP, as I probably will, because I don't know where
I will be, come the elections, but I will leave with a clean heart that we have been able to talk.
The day I got my first hug from the hon Smit, he had hair all over, and he said he was happy to be giving me a hug. I actually scolded him for having a beard. I told him to cut that thing off, it hurt my face ... [Laughter.] ... forgetting that I was not the person he had to hug every day and who was the one who had to worry about his beard every day! This shows how far we have come.
I must say that I don't know where we would have been without the hon Nyambi and Ma' Dikgale. So, I want to thank them. [Applause.] I also want to thank the Deputy Chair - in his absence, it was these two who held us together. [Interjections.]
Yes, we changed Chief Whips. She started us off. She took us places, and we must thank her. Perhaps it is exactly because mistakes happened that we became stronger for it, and therefore, nTate, say so. Whilst we thank you for helping us navigate the rest of the way, we must also thank Mme Dr Mateme for the stewardship that she gave us. [Applause.]
We must thank the women of the NCOP because, also, when we started off, there were only two young women, if I remember correctly, the hon
Motara and the hon member Manopole, who went back to the Northern Cape. The rest of us were women in our nice and comfortable years - not old! I want to thank the women because they kept up with the pace. They never made excuses that they were women with grandchildren or that they had lost their husbands to death or to younger models. They kept up with the pace, and I want to thank my female colleagues, not only for keeping up with the work, but for also being able to look at all of us, as women across parties, as women, to disagree, as women, but also to remember the points where we needed to come together, as women, address certain matters without our party hats on and move in a certain direction. [Applause.] So, I want to thank the women.
I want to thank the men for the respect they have shown us, as Members of the NCOP. I want to thank you very much. Amongst you ...
IsiXhosa:
... kukho amanene...
English:
... really, really good gentlemen. I want to thank you for that because I have not actually had a single case where female members of the NCOP have come to report male members of the NCOP. For that, I think we must be grateful. [Applause.] If you want to see how great the male South
African Members of Parliament are, travel abroad with them. They become real gentlemen there. So, I want to thank you all for that.
I want to join in in thanking the staff, from Adv Phindela right down to that anonymous member of the community who cleans our offices. I want to thank these service officers who run around tirelessly during the sittings with papers and glasses of water. I want to thank them very, very much because, without them, we might not have the energy we have. [Applause.]
To the staff in the restaurants, we don't always agree with their menus, but they do their best and we must thank them. I think those who do visit the bars must take an extra trip before they go off - not for the last drink, but for the last tip ...