We went there and we followed up on the issues and we went back there. You wouldn't have gone back yourself, because you were not there in the first place. Hon Mgabadeli went into a household with myself the morning of the assembly and the next morning. We went into a household where we uncovered lucrative illegal transactions and dealings with trucks. We followed up on this and exposed it, and we successfully had people prosecuted. Some of them were people who claimed to work for the National Prosecuting Authority and some of them were policemen.
We went there and we looked for women's projects and projects in the community. Hon Mgabadeli bought a headboard to the value of R7 000 to support the community, which came back many months after we were there to support the communities economically. [Interjections.] We bought ostrich products there, so you don't know what you are talking about when you say that we never went back. In fact, you were totally wrong when you were referring to Taking Parliament to the People, because it was the People's Assembly.
Hon Bhoola, if you don't believe in activism you are at the wrong place and you should pack up your bags and go, because then you landed here by accident. [Laughter.]
Hon Smuts Ngonyama, you say that for economic activism we must go the extra mile. I want to ask you, did you travel an extra mile when you were MEC for economic affairs in the Eastern Cape? I recall that you failed dismally to the point where we redeployed you to Head Office in Luthuli House as our spokesperson to save you the shame of nonperformance. [Applause.] The Eastern Cape is still struggling in the quagmire that you left behind as MEC for economic affairs. [Applause.]
Hon Steele, if I have time I'll come back to you. Yesterday in the US Senate President Barack Obama had this to say when he was answering to the rich, strong lobbies that are against the review of national health insurance in the US. He said to them, referring to the Senate, "We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it." I want to say in my own words, we did not come here to fear transforming this Parliament into one of activists. We came here to do exactly that and face that challenge. [Applause.]
I would like to pay tribute to President Zuma. The previous time I spoke here I criticised ourselves right from the President and the Deputy President down about being true to the oath we took. I said that this Parliament was failing to ask the President, the Deputy President and all of us whether we lived according to the oath we took.
When President Zuma took the risk of welcoming Caster Semenya, he fulfilled part of the oath he took which says that "I promise to promote and secure the rights of all South Africans", without even wondering whether the International Association of Athletics Federations would say aye or nay to the gender tests because they had suspected that Semenya was not completely female. The President did what he promised in his oath by welcoming her and promoting her rights and accepting her as a heroine of our country, so I really want to say that sometimes we must not just offer criticism. When people begin to respond in the manner which we called for we must say thank you.
The Preamble to the Constitution talks about the freely elected representatives, who are us, and it says that, amongst the things we must do, we must improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each and every person. I want to submit that we have said that all South Africans would have basic services such as water, electricity, housing, education, health, but we have not yet actually developed a minimum standard to secure that - a minimum common standard by means of which we will gauge and judge everybody. We shall judge a municipality and we shall judge ourselves as MPs, we shall judge provincial governments and we shall judge the national government.
I propose that the first step in activism to fulfil this preamble that you must live up to as freely elected public representative is that we must generate a minimum standard which says, for example, that every community of South Africa will have a functional school with this ratio of teachers to learners, with this kind of resources, within this radius, and a functional, nonracial high school, not one where learners kill themselves - I think his name was Duduzile Ngqulo and may his soul rest in peace and may his family find consolation - where teachers are not harassing learners to a point where learners kill themselves; where there are laboratories that are functioning; where there are libraries that are functioning; where teachers are teaching and arriving on time and leaving on time. [Interjections.]
Within that radius there should be a clinic with prescribed minimum standards of nurse to population ratio, of nurse to doctor ratio, of nurse to dentist ratio. Within a prescribed radius there should also be a day clinic and we should also determine a radius within which there should be tertiary health care with minimum standards. When we go on oversight visits we shall say to the municipality, "you don't have this school prescribed in this standard within this radius. You don't have this FET college prescribed in this standard with this equipment, with this ratio of educators and learners, and with this kind of budget."
I think sometimes we are criticising local government without really giving direction as government. They don't have a common standard. There is no minimum standard for water quality that this Parliament is prescribing and enforcing. When they appear before us we don't say, "But the quality of water in Bolobedu or in Mafikeng has deteriorated from this standard, which is the minimum, to this standard." With that minimum standard we'd be able to gauge from one term of Parliament to the other whether the quality of life of South Africans is improving or deteriorating. [Interjections.]