Hon Deputy Speaker, the commitment towards infrastructural development is most welcome. We certainly hope that its spin-offs will enhance many other areas of concern, like job creation.
The amount of R300 billion is a significant amount to commit to infrastructure. It is sure to excite South Africans.
We earnestly hope that this huge commitment of money will not excite the minority tenderpreneurs who will see an opportunity to make more millions, while the rural poor are condemned to extreme poverty. We hope this amount will not perpetuate the gross economic inequalities that we are already experiencing. It would have been comforting if the President had briefly outlined how the infrastructure development commitment would impact on, and improve, the standard of living for the rural poor.
In and prior to 2010, there was a buzz of infrastructure developments. Of course, we now have world-class stadia, hotels and beautiful bridges. We welcome the improvement, but the rural communities in which the majority of our citizens reside are still without roads and their living conditions have not improved.
It appears that government has taken significant strides in addressing the energy crisis in our country. It is impressive that thus far 220 000 solar geysers have been installed, and the targets set are encouraging. However, those of us who represent the rural constituencies know that even before you speak of energy-efficient tools, there are people who still do not have electricity and therefore energy efficiency becomes meaningless to them. This must be heard and treated with equal urgency as energy saving and efficiency.
South Africans had reason to be excited last year with the introduction of the Presidential Hotline, where they could lodge complaints and forward their grievances. There are allegations in the media that nothing is ever done about the cases reported. We expected the President to take the opportunity of the state of the nation address to cite cases that had been investigated since the commencement of the hotline. His failure to update us on this makes us think that perhaps we have been taken for a ride in that nothing will come of the hotline, and that it was another populist stance.
The President rightfully commended the increase in the matric pass rate. Of course, many of us are happy to see this improvement. He further acknowledged the problems in our education departments which, in the Eastern Cape, had led to the intervention and takeover by the national government.
This is, indeed, a crisis, and our education system has been in crisis mode for a long time now. We do not expect the President to go into the details of problems encountered by government departments, but seeing that education is one of the priorities, we expect that he should touch on the root causes of the many problems in education. His failure is disheartening. We have, for a long time now ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]