I like it if he shouts.
Afrikaans:
... land se boere op hul knie gedwing. Water is lewe en sonder water is daar dood. Geen mens, dier of plant kan oorleef as daar nie water is nie. Mense in dorpe en stede word direk geraak wanneer daar nie meer 'n druppel water uit hul krane kom nie. Duisende mense in plattelandse gebiede drink nog water uit strome en riviere. Wanneer hierdie water opdroog, raak die oorlewingstryd onmenslik. Daagliks hoor ons van meer gemeenskappe wat sonder water sit.
English:
The crippling effect on our agricultural sector is devastating. Not only do they have no income during this time but it cost billions of rand to keep animals alive.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to decide which animals you will feed and which you will leave to die?
This is a choice that our farmers make on a daily basis; most of them just don't have the funds to keep on buying feed anymore.
And it is not only our livestock farmers that are affected; grain and crop farmers struggled through below rainfall years during 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2019. It has placed many farmers in massive debt and they cannot get further credit from the banks. The agricultural debt is growing and is currently around R190 billion.
We would like to thank the Western Cape Minister of Agriculture, Dr Ivan Meyer, who has been instrumental in ensuring drought support to farmers and farmworkers in the Western Cape over the past three years. Not only is funding provided to buy feed and to help keep workers employed, much needed funding is also going into support for counselling. We have seen farmers committing suicide during this time and emotional support is welcomed.
We also recognise the efforts of the Eastern Cape; who has now been gazetted a drought in the province.
Thanks must go to all the groups who have raised funds to assist with fodder and drilling boreholes. This has been ongoing over the past four years and has kept many families and farmers alive.
But where is our national government? And where is our national drought disaster plan?
The DA would like to repeat our call that the drought be declared a national disaster in order to ensure improvement of planning, management and responses across various organs of state as well as sectoral stakeholders.
This drought affects more than one province and we cannot leave out to provincial governments to deal with this alone.
We urge Minister Thoko Didiza to convene an urgent agricultural MINMEC in order to discuss the impact of the drought and to shift funds from AgriParks, which are
white elephants, towards drought relief. This could make at least R1 billion available immediately.
We also ask Minister Mboweni to look at legislation that's regulating our banking sector in order to assist with soft loan repayments during this ongoing disaster.
We support the call by AgriSA to look at a way of agricultural insurance that could assist during drought periods.
But least of all, we call on the ANC government to find the political will to support farmers, black and white, during this difficult times.
I want to tell hon Mahlobo that in uMkhanyakude two sets of water pipes were already laid, pump stations and all [Time expired.] this is where the corruption comes in, stop corruption. [Applause.]