Okay, I am sorry, hon Carlisle. I enjoy his interjections, Chairperson, because he makes a fool of himself when he interjects, so it is a pity that you have stopped him from interjecting.
The Freedom Charter said that people should be free to move throughout South Africa, and it was referring to pass laws and influx control. We have gotten rid of those. But millions of people in South Africa still don't have the basic right to move freely with mobility and so forth, because of the lack of safety and the way we have not transformed our spatial realities.
The struggle for safety on our roads is also an economic and business issue. In the world at least US$100 million is lost as a result of fatalities and serious injuries on roads. I think that is a vast underestimation, frankly. Here, in South Africa, at least R50 million a year ... [Interjections.] ... sorry, R50 billion is lost as a result. Thanks for the interjection. I am sure it was in line with the Rules of the House.
But, of course, the fundamental issue is that these are not just statistics. They are tragedies for human beings, for families who lose breadwinners, who lose loved ones and so forth.
Now, the good news - and here's the strategy, because we ask what the strategy is - is that this is an epidemic for which there are cures. Other countries, countries that had as bad a record as we do, for instance France in the 1970s, have massively reduced fatalities and injuries on their roads.
In terms of complying with the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety, there is a five-pillar programme. One of the pillars is that there needs to be an overall strategy: what we are calling "road safety management", and we have entrusted that critically to the Road Traffic Management Corporation, the RTMC. There have been problems there, as the Minister stated. We are addressing those. We think we are beginning to turn the RTMC around.
The RTMC, MEC Carlisle, is the responsibility not just of the Minister, but of all of the shareholders who are all the MECs in the country and the SA Local Government Association, Salga. I think you would agree that it is very important that we have a unified strategy; that we don't approach this issue in a piecemeal fashion or in an ad hoc way. So that is a critical component.
One of the early successes of this is the National Rolling Enforcement Plan, which began on 1 October last year when the Minister announced that we would, with the co-operation of MECs and municipalities, stop and inspect one million cars at least every single month. The media was often sceptical and said, "Ah, this is just before Christmas. It is the usual thing: Arrive Alive, and then they are going to forget about it." We have sustained that with the co-operation of our colleagues in provinces and municipalities throughout the country and we have exceeded those targets.
This is not a question of just stopping cars, inspecting them and checking if they have paid fines and so on, but it is also about asking municipalities and provinces to report, so that we build up a national picture of what is going on. The same applies to accidents and fatalities - this is not just about statistics, but what the causes are and what the provinces and municipalities are doing about the causes.
There is also the whole issue of safer roads and safer road transportation. This means all the things that the Minister and others have talked about - the S'hamba Sonke programme, making sure that we provide money for road maintenance, particularly in rural areas and provinces. What is also very critical - and others have said this - is public transport. In principle, public transport is much safer, much more affordable, more energy useful and so forth than private cars that congest roads and so on. Therefore, the devolution of funding - all the funding isn't sitting at a national level - to cities and eventually also to district municipalities to integrate their land use plans, to transform land use, to deracialise land settlement patterns and also to connect public transport systems, is very much part of our road safety strategy as well. Safer vehicles!
Let me just say something quickly here because the media is jumping on to this: We are moving towards what we are calling periodic vehicle testing. Currently, the only time that vehicles get assessed is when we sell them, and that is a problem. So what are we trying to do? The first thing is that currently we need to note that already buses need to come in every six months for periodic vehicle testing. Minibuses and other vehicles used for profit - freight vehicles and so on - must come in for vehicle testing every single year.
In many other countries you have to do that annually - bring your own car in annually when you renew your licence. Part of renewing the licence is also that they check the vehicle. We know in South Africa that, one, we don't have the capacity to do 10 million vehicles in a year; and, two, we also know that we have to be realistic about the reality of South Africa, which is that there are large numbers of very poor people whose only chance of mobility is a car, but they can't really afford a car, so their car is 12 years old and often not in great shape.
What we are proposing is to have periodic vehicle testing: in the case of cars, for instance private vehicles, we propose that we start with the oldest vehicles, vehicles of 10 years and older and perhaps on a two-yearly basis rather than a one-yearly basis. So we begin to edge into this space, not in order to punish people or to render people immobile, but to say that if you can't really afford a car that is basically safe, you then can't afford a car. We need to assist that process, but it will not necessarily be a very popular process. It will be absolutely important, though. It is in the interests of those people themselves and the safety of all of us who use the roads.
The fourth pillar of the UN campaign is safer road users: one of a whole range of things we need to do is that we need to improve our driving skills. The DA, in the Budget Vote debate in the National Assembly, correctly raised the question of how relevant our driving test is. Is what gets tested at the testing station actually relevant to the real live conditions that we face when we go out on the roads? I think that is a good question, because we are not partisan or deaf to what people say. This needs to be a co-operative thing. That is something, Minister, that we are looking at. How relevant is it?
One of the important things that we also want to do is to begin to register and regulate driving schools. [Interjections.] Sorry? [Interjections.] Oh, okay.
Now, again, parts of the media have jumped on this as if to say, "Here's the nasty government trying to regulate - regulate media, regulate this, regulate driving schools." Interestingly, it's the driving schools themselves that are coming to us and saying, "Please regulate us. We would like regulation." Why? Well, because the reputable driving schools - and there are some, many perhaps - are having their livelihoods threatened by fly-by-night operators who really don't know what they are doing, but advertise themselves as driving schools. So, we want to support that. The Minister will be meeting with the driving schools so that we can move towards certifying those that are certifiable - not in the sense that one would use for the MEC, not that kind of certifiable - in terms of their ability to run effective driving schools.
Eventually, perhaps, we can move to a situation like that in Germany, but that will take some time, in which in order to get a licence you have to show that you have been through ... We can discuss it. But it is certainly important to encourage effective driving schools, and this works well in a number of other countries.
There are many other things to be said. We should really congratulate the SA National Taxi Council, Santaco, on coming to the party ever since Minister Ndebele has been ... I'm not sure how he is charming them, but they are really coming to the party. For instance, they are running Operation Hlokomela to encourage their drivers to drive safely and be careful about their customers. We are also working jointly with them to try to establish an academy for taxi drivers.
Critically, my last point ... How much time is left? One minute, okay. Regardless of all the things we are doing, we must obviously accept the reality that people are still going to get killed and injured on our roads. So, in terms of the last pillar of the UN decade, it is critical that we have effective post-crash interventions ... [Inaudible.] ... instant care. That's why as the ANC - again, something they don't like very much - we are going to roll out national health insurance.
What we are also going to do is that next year we are going to come to Parliament with legislation to transform the Road Accident Fund. Because the fund is based on fault, people who get injured have to prove that they weren't at fault, or that they weren't so much at fault and so on, and then their claim is awarded. It takes forever. Lawyers chow up half the money, and it doesn't go into the hospital care system so we have to change that. Thank you very much, Chairperson. [Time expired.] [Applause.]