Mr Speaker, the tragedy at Marikana which claimed the lives of 44 South Africans and the ongoing mine unrest, which we have witnessed over the last two months, have highlighted fundamental structural problems in our economy which continue to keep millions of South Africans on the outside. I thank the Deputy President for acknowledging that at the heart of this is the migrant labour system which continues to uproot families and to undermine the development of rural South Africa. Yet, as I am sure, the Deputy President will agree that there has not been enough done to deliver a decisive blow to the structural inequality.
If anything, the plight of the widows of the Marikana victims illustrates that it is women who bear the ultimate brunt of this burden. Does the Deputy President not agree that the time has come for this Parliament, of which he is the most senior member, to tackle the underlying causes of this ongoing socioeconomic crisis head-on? Does the Deputy President support the DA's call for the establishment of a multiparty ad hoc committee to address these problems? I thank you.