Chairperson, I believe that the questions from the hon Van Dyk are asked for effect, because they are answered in the document as it stands. In respect of Alexkor, there were two routes you could take. The one route was that the land traditionally belonged to the Richtersveld community. The Nama were given that land by Queen Victoria at the end of the Anglo-Boer War. If the claim had succeeded at the scale that their lawyers had argued for, we would have been talking billions. There is a different agreement that was struck and concluded this year. If you want the participation of the community, then it is going to cost you. You can either continue to treat the community as dirt, as part of the Kgalagadi, part of Namaqualand; just that - take the land, ignore their rights or empower them. This money is about empowering the community to a new beginning. That is the issue at hand. It is dealing with historic injustices and that is important in understanding the issues of Alexkor.
In the context of Denel, I think that it is a difficult issue because there are some corporate priority issues that are still being negotiated. I think that the sensitivity of this would have been expressed in the Portfolio Committee on Finance. We can't go into all of the details. These issues were canvassed today to the limits possible and I think we must respect that some of the detail would be covered by the confidentiality agreements.
In respect of the PBMR, I think that my colleague, the Minister of Public Enterprises, would be in the best position to explain this. As the Acting Minister and as the Minister of Finance, there are issues that have to be resolved quite speedily. Yes, I agree that a corporate structure is one of those issues that needs to be resolved.
In respect of the business plan, let me repeat: If we had responded, in the Medium-Term Expenditure Committee's hearings, to the request for money, without all of the answers that we have now provided, I believe we would have been in dereliction of duty. We have held out for as long as we can, to ensure that the answers are afforded us. They have come. The business plan is on the table. We are now talking of an amount of money that will carry not even to the end of the fiscal year. This is the nature of the beast that is research and development.
Things are not as cut and dried as with a company that has been running for a very long period of time. That is why, if I weren't reasonably satisfied with the answers that we got on the business plan, I wouldn't have had the confidence to put the request for resources for the PBMR before this House. I do it in good conscience and in good faith, knowing that we have interrogated the business plan to the best of our technical abilities in the Treasury. [Applause.]