Chairperson, the first thing that we as the ACDP want to say is that, following upon the recent natural disasters, our hearts of course go out to the affected people. Nobody will ever know the misery that people experience when this kind of thing occurs.
It is wonderful, in a certain way, how people are brought together by a tragedy. The depth of compassion people display, the generosity of spirit which exists and the good neighbourliness which suddenly comes to the fore are also wonderful. It is perhaps a lesson for us, and maybe we should have more of that in other enterprises. We should not only wait for disasters before we unlock those reserves which exist in all our people to do things together and to undertake great enterprises together to build this wonderful part of the world.
The President was right when he said we have a unique opportunity. We will never have a better opportunity than we have now. What we need, more than anything, is a change of heart. It is out of this disaster that one sees the compassion, co-operation and generosity that represent the sort of spirit we need to engage if we are going to build anything in this part of the world.
We are proud of our countrymen. We are proud of the brave personnel of the security forces, the charities, the private individuals, the companies and the churches that continue to do so much selflessly to alleviate the plight and suffering of our country, often at great personal risk. We cannot take that risk away. All we can say is that we are sincerely grateful for the dedication to duty which they demonstrate on our behalf.
We are proud, too, of the intercession and the help of our Government on behalf of its neighbours. We know that we have a strong voice in international fora. Our neighbours are very often weak, small, landlocked microstates. The fact that our Government has interceded with the world community on their behalf to bring their plight to the attention of the world community is something that we should be proud of. We are acting out our responsibility in a way that all of us can be thankful for and proud of.
We are also pleased, of course, about the growing involvement of the United Nations, and of the world community, as a consequence of that intercession by our Government. I do not know whether we would have seen anything like the effort we are seeing had it not been for the South African Government interceding in the way that it did. Some people were very slow in coming forward, but we are grateful for those that have come to assist. We are also grateful for the NGOs that have come forward with help.
We will pray that they continue to remain involved, because the flooding is not yet over. The worst challenge is yet to come. Those of us who know anything about it will know that the combating of disease, pestilence and hunger still needs to occur and that the challenge of reconstruction still lies ahead. The reserves of the people who have to cope with those problems are diminishing every day as they get weaker and hungrier and poorer and less able to cope as they go forward, and as the spectre of disease and pestilence that will surely follow becomes clearer.
We in the Cape have had our share of disaster on a much smaller scale, but our hearts go out to them too, and we are grateful for the actions of our Government in the Western Cape. Just the crop damage in the Northern Cape along the Orange River, in export grapes alone, is estimated at R350 million, according to a farmer I met this morning. That will, of course, ultimately be shared by the community as a whole since it will have to deal with that loss. [Time expired.] [Applause.]