Thank you, Madam. The glasses broke by themselves. This doesn't happen where we meet in the Western Cape, but the glasses went all by themselves down the slope here and fell down there. Perhaps I will get used to this when I have been here a couple of times.
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon Minister, who is always helpful and kind to me. It is a privilege for me to serve in the family of which he is, I think, sometimes to his regret, the father. It is also a pleasure to follow on the hon Sibande, the chairperson of the select committee.
I was particularly interested in the hon Sibande, because he largely delivered my speech, but he started off on an interesting note. He said that the ANC won eight provinces, which is correct. If one adds to that the fact that the ANC controls the national government 100% and controls all tax revenue 100%, the ANC therefore is totally responsible for public transport and all related aspects. If they are not responsible, who is? We have to ask ourselves that.
Then the hon member went on, quite correctly, to say, "Yes, but the railroads are in bad shape." The rail is in bad shape; experiencing a decline. Well, this is quite a serious decline. Most of us haven't seen a train on the railway line for a long, long time, except in the cities, and that is Metrorail. And they don't look very good, sir. [Interjections.] That is the truth and all those members know it.
He went on to say that the decline of rail has a tremendous impact on the deterioration of roads. That is absolutely correct. That is one of the hard realities we have to deal with. The fact is if we don't fix rail, we can never fix road. The hon member is correct in that. He said that along with road deterioration came increasing fatalities on our roads; that roads were becoming increasingly unsafe - he is correct - and more expensive.
In fact, far from creating jobs, they shed jobs. Right across Africa you can see a direct correlation between the rising cost of transporting goods on failing roads and the falling rate of employment within this family sector. My concern, sir ... And it is a family. For those who want to make politics out of it, that is their business. I think this is too serious a matter for politics.
It is a matter in which my hon Minister allows us to agree, in coming to this House, to say what we want to say. This is also where my hon Minister has inherited a "mess of pottage", as they say in the Bible. Many of the problems we face today are problems not of his making, but problems that he inherited - from the past, the near past, and the distant past.
There are three things that concern me. I want to tie them together in a triangle as it were. [Interjections.] The first is the toll roads, the Gauteng toll roads. They are wonderful to have if you are Sweden or California, but can we afford them and at what cost? So, we had to close the toll roads down for the election. Otherwise, perhaps the ANC would only have had seven provinces, and not eight. We had to close the toll roads down for the elections. What that brings home to us is that the cost of those toll roads is the true cost of roads, and people can't afford and won't afford to pay them.
The second matter is that of two train crashes - one in Tshwane and the other in Johannesburg - in which over 1 050 people were injured and two died. By the grace of God it was only two. But let me tell you that these crashes are the forerunner of train crashes to come which will make our blood run cold. This is because at the same time as this is happening, a leaked report from the rail regulators, printed in Business Day, said that in 2008 and 2009 there were 5 000 accidents on the railway lines; 1 000 collisions a year and rising; and that 400 people died in those collisions and accidents other than people who were killed at level crossings. And today is, sir, International Level Crossing Day. I was out with Metrorail and Transnet, my partners, at crossings today to see how we can bring down the death rate there.
What concerns me is that I do not see a strategy. What the hon member before me spoke about, I would say, if I was to calculate quickly, would cost about R70 billion to R80 billion, and it is not there. It is not there. In fact, I don't want to argue with my hon Minister, but I don't believe the R86 billion for the 718 sets of trains is there. Even if it is there, when are we going to see it? In 2014 we will see the first one. It will come on full stream, maybe, by 2019 - that is eight years from now. The current commuter rail system cannot possibly continue for eight years. It is out of the question. It is out of the question. The roads in this country cannot possibly continue for eight years, unless we can get a considerable proportion of freight, as the hon member said, back onto rail. And I don't see the plans for that.
The first plan has to be that you cannot possibly split up your transport function under different ministerial heads. It can't be done. It is wrong. This powerful House, which represents those eight provinces, the hon members, you should be taking this up. You should be supporting the hon chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on these issues, because she is saying the same things that I am saying. And so we have to ...