Hon members, the President has established the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission and through the Management Committee of the Secretariat, chaired by hon Minister Gugile Nkwinti, who is also the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, 23 strategic infrastructure projects have been identified. Some of them are already at the stage of being implemented. There is an effort to address the infrastructure backlog.
Part of the rationale behind it is to learn relevant lessons and apply them to the roll-out in the rest of the country. As you know, the issue of co- operative governance - the three spheres - can also thwart efforts to implement with the speed required. This is the reason that the PICC brings together local municipalities, through the SA Local Government Association, provincial premiers and Ministers at national level. It is to ensure that the lessons learnt from these strategic infrastructure projects will inform how issues of spatial planning can be improved upon in future.
We are confident that with this approach we should be able to nibble away at the huge mountain of social infrastructure backlogs. We need to reach an understanding at some point, so that we will have a template for the laying out of infrastructure, particularly in the rural poor municipalities that have no real revenue base to speak of, so that their responsibility will be to maintain rather than lay out infrastructure. Thank you. [Applause.]
Government's position regarding expulsion of Syrian envoys
7. Rev K R J Meshoe (ACDP) asked the Deputy President:
Whether the Government will join the USA, France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and Bulgaria, which announced the expulsion of Syrian envoys from their countries as an expression of their outrage at the recent massacres in Houla in Syria; if not, why not; if so, when? NO1841E