Yes, Chair, through you. I was not sure when he addressed us whether he was still a PFP member or a DA member. I didn't know. I was quite confused.
That is why, as the NCOP, in our strategic framework plan 2009 to 2014, we have taken a decision to make development of economic infrastructure, especially roads, one of our key focus areas with regard to our oversight work. We did this with an understanding of the crucial role that roads play in the development and growth of our economy.
I would like to make use of some examples, because I think I must use the opportunity to deal with these kinds of challenges. Through you, Chair, hon Minister, Deputy Minister and officials from the department, we took Parliament to the people in the Free State, where we were confronted, as a committee and members, with a very serious challenge of the unintended consequences of a piece of legislation that we passed in Parliament, which was the Cross-Border Road Transport Act. We understood at the time we passed the Bill what its intention was. But now here is the snag. It doesn't only affect the Free State, because once it affects the Free State it means that it cuts across all borders of the Republic with our neighbouring countries.
The taxi operators in the Ficksburg area, historically, had an arrangement with operators from Lesotho in that the Lesotho operators would bring in passengers, drop them off at Ficksburg, and then the operators in Ficksburg would transport the passengers to Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and so on. But with this Act their economic base has been eroded. Here we are talking about people who responded to the Taxi Recapitalisation Programme, people who are faced with serious debt in terms of their taxis. This is because their arrangement has been made illegal by the legislation, and not because of a lack of co-operation between the two groups of operators from both sides of the border. They still want to operate in the manner in which they were operating, because it was beneficial to both the operators of Lesotho and those of South Africa. The Lesotho operators can drop off passengers, but the minute they leave from that point the inspectors impound the taxis of the operators in the country.
The issue here is that we are saying that these are unintended consequences of that piece of legislation. But now what do we do? How do we address this? We are putting forward a proposal as the select committee that we put on hold all these punitive measures that the Act empowers the inspectors or the agency to implement. If we made more investigations, and if there is a need for an amendment to the Act, it wouldn't be wrong for the Act to come back so long as it brings back the economic benefits for the operators in the Ficksburg area. I'm raising this Ficksburg issue because I asked myself what was happening in the Thaba Tshweu border areas.
We went to Limpopo with our "Taking Parliament to the People" programme. There is this ugly thing in the deep rural areas of Limpopo, in the Greater Tubatse, with the Segwaigwai bridge crossing. Here they use a dangerous vehicle that takes young people, teachers and children across the river. What is important here is that we are aware that something is being done by the provincial department, because the last time we engaged with the province they said that they had serious limitations and without the necessary support from the national department they wouldn't be able to act. So, we thought that we needed to use this policy debate as a platform to raise some of these things - requesting the national department to intervene and assist the Limpopo province.
That goes not only for Limpopo, but also has to do with what is happening in the Eastern Cape. We are quite comfortable to provide the department with all the information so that it can assist.
The next issue we have been raising for I don't know how many years. Finally, I found great relief that with the visit of the President to the Eastern Cape recently, during an interview on the scholar transport issue the premier confirmed that the scholar transport matter was no longer an education issue but had been transferred to the department of transport in the province, and that all that needed to be done was to look at the modalities and the handing over of information and so forth.
Through you, Chairperson, hon Minister, what would be wrong in our having a national policy framework that says that all scholar transport should be taken away from education and belong to the department of transport in all our provinces? [Applause.] I think that will be one of the issues that will be looked at. [Interjections.]
On the upgrading of infrastructure and roads ...