Hon Chair, I'll start by saying, not in an attempt to glorify what has been said by the MEC from the Western Cape and the hon Groenewald, but to remind them: before they even look at the Western Cape, they must go back and look at Leeu-Gamka, De Doorns, Beaufort West and Oudtshoorn, and then come back and tell us the state of the roads in these areas. According to them, the Western Cape is Cape Town and it doesn't include all these other places that are battling and are negatively affected. [Interjections.]
I got a note from the chair of the committee that, in fact, we need to start by appreciating what the department is doing. We have accepted that, Chair. The fact is that the department was able to honestly present before this House the challenges that they are faced with, and the things they are doing in order not to be trapped in the belief that it is too late and that there is nothing that they can do. Now, it is clear that there are plans in place; there are programmes in place; there are strategic areas that the department has identified in terms of how to intervene in transforming the transport sector and ensuring that it does not only benefit the minority party, but that the beneficiaries of that transformation are the working class and the poor.
Transformation, as we have noted, is a very challenging process, which requires complete change in both form and content. It is a process that needs to speak to both the immediate and the broader strategic interests of the country. Our immediate strategic interest as a country is to have inclusive economic growth that will ensure that there is a sustained increase in income of all members of society, not only a few, so as to be able to afford to meet the basic needs. Transport therefore plays that strategic role, because if our people are unable to go to work and so forth, they are then dislodged from the means of economic activity.
So, in achieving this immediate strategic objective or interest, we need radical changes in values, attitudes and relationships at all levels and, more specifically, within the policy and spending patterns in the department. This is an area we are worried about as the committee: the capacity and attitude of the members of the department, and whether they share the same passion with us as members of the committee. And this is a call that we are making as the committee: we would love to see this passion.
Our economy is in need of reliable, sustainable and safe public transport, but to achieve this requires, of course, firm commitment and bold approaches by us as the political leadership. It requires the commitment and the buy-in by the people's Parliament and an alignment of resources to achieve all these goals.
It needs a budget which will ensure that, in partnership, we address these challenges and inequalities that have been handed down by history, as the hon MEC from the Western Cape said. I wondered at some point whether he was a DA member or still a Progressive Federal Party member. I was not sure.