House Chairperson, Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP, fellow delegates, infrastructure, investment and development should be an instrument to transform the economic landscape of our country. For too long has the shadow of the apartheid era plagued and distorted development of the country in social, spatial and economic terms. Economic development was and still is concentrated in pockets throughout the country.
While the ANC majority and the government has made much progress in reversing the historical structural injustices of the past, more infrastructure investment is required and more development is necessary to accelerate inclusive economic growth. All this effort is geared towards eliminating poverty, inequality and unemployment.
However, the country faces a number of challenges in terms of infrastructure that it will have to resolve. The bulk of these challenges is the inheritance of the apartheid past and some are related to poor service delivery at a local government level. These challenges will have to be confronted to ensure that ordinary South Africans start experiencing a better life for all through infrastructure development.
Resolving the challenge of fragmentation of infrastructure development between the different spheres of government, the harmonisation of infrastructure development between national, provincial and local government is a key priority as this will raise the level of infrastructure development to serve the economic needs of communities. This means that housing development ought to occur near commercial development of enterprises and industrial parks or vice versa. This provides economic opportunities for communities, hospitals, schools, sporting facilities that must be integrated with housing developments to provide for the social and cultural needs in communities. The new town issue is not a new thing. The new town development was developed in the United Kingdom, UK, after the war and I think it needs to be investigated.
The provincial and local government will have to implement integrated infrastructure development. The District Development model as outlined by the President in the state of the nation address, sona, address of 2020 will facilitate the integration of infrastructure development as this is based on the various sectors of an area coming together to chart out development.
Local government has to ensure that basic service delivery occurs in communities and will also have to facilitate land usage in urban and rural areas to ensure inclusive economic growth and transformation. There is a need to deliver what we are tasked as government to deliver, a new culture of payment for service - I know I come from South African National Civic Organisation, SANCO, in the past and we advocated for the boycott of payment of funds, bonds and other services but those days are over now. We now have a democratic government. People should now pay for the service they are receiving.
In the past there have been weaknesses, in the planning of infrastructure development as this was little integration for example of new housing developments with economic opportunities.
The rail, bus and taxi network transport millions of people to and from work on a daily basis throughout the country. It serves the need of the young who attend school, and colleges, universities, public transportation needs to be developed as a part of the integration of the infrastructure development.
The modernisation of the rail network and road transportation will ease the burden on the roads. Over the next year government intends spending more than R1, 4billion to revamp the rail network and possible the Western Cape can look at building a speed train because it takes us almost an hour and half to travel 13 kilometres. I think we can do that jointly.
Energy security through the reliable supply of electricity and transport fuels as part of the critical infrastructure development required for economic transformation and inclusive economic growth. The restructuring of Eskom will enable green, renewable energy to close the demand gap and increase supply. Local service delivery has been found wanting and 40 municipalities required intervention to strengthen their ability for efficient service delivery. The government has embarked upon corrective actions to ensure that service delivery occurs in these municipalities. The President in his sona, address of 2020 gave the concrete example of this
corrective action in nonperforming areas, namely, Mamusa Local Municipality. In this municipality the District Development Model was successfully utilised to clear illegal dump sites and refurbish pump stations.
The communities have in various parts of the country embarked on protest to highlight to national government the unsatisfactory of the state of affairs regarding service delivery in some areas. Protest is a legitimate part of a vibrant democracy. However, what is not legitimate is protesting a democracy that is a [Inaudible.] a destruction of private and public property. This should not be the protest action as this is not legal and not within the framework of normal democratic protest. Community facilities need to be protected and developed as they are part of the infrastructure to create a better life for all.
Public property should be the object to preservation for future generations, the destruction thereof requires that we have to rebuild. That means taking money from another part of the budget.
I want to divert from my speech and respond to the remarks that I heard here today. Hon Boshoff spoke of investor confidence, I was outside the country trying to get investor confidence for people to
invest in this country. But every time a politician stands up and make a negative statement, those investors turn away because it is based upon perception and not upon reality. I think that is where we need to say that we are in this country together, all of us. If we knock holes in to the ship all of us sink. We need to rekindle a spirit of being together and a spirit of being South Africans to move this country forward together.
As I said earlier, the new town concept should be looked at because the President spoke about it in the sona, the Premier of Gauteng David Makhura spoke about new cities in Gauteng. The one that joins the North West province around Lanseria and another that joins the Free State around the Vaal. But we need to create a vision of hope. We need to look at social compacts as mentioned by the President. What are those social compacts? Somebody spoke about finance, we need to bring about banks, the trade unions, faith-based organization and business South Africa into one unit to say we can do this collaborately in a social compact and that must be social cohesion. And those new cities should be non-racial, non-sexist and ensure that it is green and that there are different forms of subsidies so that we can bring everybody into that new city. You can have the rich and the poor people and different forms of subsidies to support that kind of housing and development.
Importantly, Minister, the shared facilities in that kind of a city becomes important, the schools, the hospitals, the trading areas, the libraries so that people become integrated. They may be living in a differently subsidised house but they use the same social social faculties and take that forward.
I recall Minister once you and I had a vision together with Azapo when we were sitting in a committee to take South Africa forward together in unity, you were then a member of the PAC.
We need to recognise the challenges of the past. But we also need to also support a vision of hope for the future. How can investment infrastructure create conditions to kick start and develop the economy? It was Jan van Riebeck in his diary that said:
What these natives do not recognise that that which we have taken by the sod is rightfully ours.
I think that perception needs to be changed because rightfully ours is also ours and not that of van Riebeck and his children only. The EFF spoke about poor quality and deployable schools, section 25 of the Constitution. I want to say to them that jointly, we will amend section 25 of the Constitution, including the DA hopefully.
I want to cite another issue on what people do on the ground. At one point, we wanted to build a Cosmo City, for 10years it was held up because of the residence associations we had taken the state to court in order not build that. We employed some people on the ground to ensure that that would not have happened. But 10years holding costs pushed up the price of Cosmo City to another level. But it is another development today and it is a good development. People are living much better there than where they lived in the past.
With that I want to appeal, we are in South Africa together whether we are the ANC, DA, EFF, all of us are together. We need to have a vision of creating a society that is free of want, non-racial, non tribal and successful thank you very much.