Chairperson and hon members, we in the UCDP wish to align ourselves with the hon Minister by expressing our condolences to the hon Mr Maluleka and his family in respect of his late brother.
It would seem that there is never a dull day in the Minister's working life and there is always a fire to be put out in one or other of the state-owned enterprises. The most interesting in the public's eye should be the Medupi project. This is not only for the controversy it attracts, but also because we should not have to live with the collective anxiety that, one of these days, we may have to live with load-shedding, as we had to a few years ago.
It has become public knowledge that the Minister declared that he would not accept any further delays in the project. He repeated this morning that the deadline will be the end of the year, even though the initial deadline was April last year. It is doubtful that the project will produce power at the scheduled time.
We are interested in how Eskom decided to draw Alstom's performance bond when Alstom and Hitachi Power Africa were reportedly both performing badly and with unacceptable complacency. Earlier we heard reports that Eskom relied on Hitachi to carry out work but that welding faults were concealed. How did Hitachi get away with what appears to be a big, fraudulent misrepresentation? Could it be that Hitachi is pardoned and its faults tolerated because of the 25% stake that Chancellor House has in it? [Interjections.] Is it because of the undisputed reports that the ANC stands to benefit R2 billion from it?
Of course, there is a need to have diplomatic trade relations with the rest of the African continent. We appreciate the fact that the Minister appears to hold that view. We just hope that such relations do not bear catastrophic results, as suggested by our military presence in the Central African Republic, as we had in the past.
While we appreciate the extent to which SAA brings the world to Africa and takes Africa to the world, and while SA Express traverses Southern Africa, it is disconcerting that the North West province is the only province without flights - which they had before. We hope this matter will be addressed sooner rather than later. [Applause.] [Time expired.]