Hon Deputy Speaker, hon members, as the ANC we agree with the situation that we have observed. Firstly, this is real transformation. We have seen a situation where, during apartheid, most of these major polluters were basically given the right to pollute. Those polluters actually got away with murder for a very long time. They were focused on profits and nothing else, without taking care of the health of their own people.
The new dispensation has made sure that we are not giving people permission to pollute, but are concerned about ambient air quality, so that, wherever our people are, they are actually given the healthy lifestyles they deserve.
One of the things that I need to indicate is that this was an initial visit in a long programme of oversight that we are still going to undertake. We cannot conclusively say, just having visited Mpumalanga and Gauteng, that that is the situation in the entire country. We were supposed to have visited the south of Durban as well. We could not get there because we were urgently convened back in Parliament during that very week. We complied and came back here.
Now the enforcement of the legislation and these standards provides us with an opportunity to ensure that we reverse the apartheid situation that there was. Our people are going to benefit.
Applications have been referred to, to which the DA is opposed. I must say that in the main this obsession is with regard to Eskom, not every other company. This is because Eskom is a parastatal. We ask the question, and we even did so during the visit: Why the obsession with Eskom? Eskom did not apply for everything, or for all its power stations. It was just for some of them. We want to indicate here that you must take time to understand what these applications are about. It is not just a blanket approach, and the department is focused on whether these applications are objective or not.
In the portfolio committee we agreed with the department on the applications. To come here and grandstand is just not on. [Time expired.] [Applause.] Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.