Thank you, House Chairperson. The reasons for service delivery protests are complex and neither obvious nor universal, and the ACDP commends the ad hoc committee on the depth of their inquiry and on their comprehensive recommendations, including complaints response, management mechanisms and the strengthening of systems to curtail corruption and improve oversight and monitoring.
In looking a little more broadly at enhancing the quality of service delivery, the ACDP considers the possibility of a distinctive role for business, perhaps through corporate social investment. It is true that many companies have up till now regarded corporate social investment, CSI, as little more than a means to points on the Black Economic Empowerment scorecard. As a result many CSI initiatives folded, wasting millions of rands once a company finished its funding commitments.
More recently, however, CSI has moved from being an ad hoc reactive to being more strategic, proactive and beneficial as the relevance of investing in communities is being recognised. Perhaps this would be a good time to set up an industry body, not just to ensure that companies claiming BEE points adhere to their commitments, but to bring needy communities and even municipalities together with relevant businesses and to offer critical guidance for innovative and self-sustaining programmes in order to maximise the benefit in communities.
Another important consideration is the effects of climate change. Government's present struggle with service delivery will seem like a picnic by comparison. Droughts, the flooding of certain crops and fish species no longer thriving as they did before, are already adding to the stresses of the poor. The impact on food production and quality of life are becoming increasingly negative.
Government and Parliament have been accused of showing no signs of making this matter an urgent priority. While the President's interministerial task team has made and done its reporting, we see no material change on government's agenda. The Integrated Resource Plan, IRP 2, which is the energy plan for the country over the next 25 years, has once again been delayed while plans to build Medupi and Kusile and discussions around nuclear plants go ahead.
The country is at a watershed. We could turn around our energy industry, as Australia has done, over a matter of a few years from close to nothing in 2007 to a billion dollar industry in 2010. By using concentrated solar power and wind we could, within two to three years, set up plants to the equivalent of four Medupis.
Government has managed to give the impression that it is biased and listens only to the lobby which argues that renewable energy cannot provide base load power and that the industry has not yet proven itself. These are allegations which are blatantly untrue. Government is procrastinating over urgent decisions relating to crucial issues and the people of South Africa continue to go without. However, we will and we have supported the initiative to interrogate service delivery problems and we will approve the report. Thank you.