Madam Chair, I want to thank the speakers very much for the very constructive inputs that have been made here today. Let me start, perhaps, by paying tribute to the response that we have had regarding the funeral of our icon Mama Sisulu. The response that we have had is perhaps a tribute to her life, a leader of our people in all sectors. The response that we have had, for instance, in terms of transporting our people to bid farewell to her on Saturday has been amazing.
We have heard the entire taxi industry saying that they would be there, ferrying our people easily without much cost. We have heard the Public Utility Transport Corporation, Putco, and the bus industry saying generally that they would be there, ferrying our people free of charge. The trains of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA, Prasa, will be made available, including long-distance ones from Cape Town, the Eastern Cape, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal which will be leaving tomorrow for this funeral. This is very heartening and a tribute to the life that she lived. We want to record our appreciation for this.
Mama Sisulu fought for our freedom to vote, be ourselves and be free. That freedom did not only involve freedom to vote but also freedom of movement. What is freedom if you can move freely in Johannesburg or Soweto, but you can't move freely if you are at Ngcobo? Therefore, what we are doing, and all the contributions here are referring to, is extending the freedom of our people firmly to include freedom of movement, freedom to be able to choose whether to stay in an urban area or a rural one, and not because you are not going to have roads, water and electricity if you are out in a rural area. So that is a very important contribution.
We who remain here must make the dream that Mama Sisulu had of having complete freedom, including freedom of movement, a reality. We are saying that just as we have freedom in education and health care, let us also have that in transport as well. The contributions by all the speakers here have really said that this transport family has a task on its hands.
Let us use our collegiality, our familial bonds and our constructive ability to contribute. Let us perhaps deal with the age-old question - I've seen it being raised by President Obama even now - which is: How do we pay for transport infrastructure? The president of the United States, the president of one of the oldest democracies and most powerful economies, is still grappling with the question of how to pay for transport infrastructure.
Do you say the user pays? Do you say the taxpayer pays, for instance for the Gauteng freeway improvement, and at whose expense? Should it be at the expense of the people of Ngcobo? What do you do if you have this cake? How do you distribute it? Should you not make sure that all of us receive accelerated development such that those who don't have a road at all must have a road? How do we balance this?
Let's discuss this in a proper way. We have opened, to be specific, the toll road between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Let us have views on how we want to approach this. This is not a question that is going to be answered by Sibusiso Ndebele or Jeremy Cronin. It has to be answered by all of us. Let us put together all these ideas. What do we do?
A loan of R20 billion has been acquired to pay for building that road. How do you pay back the loan? Do you have the National Treasury, meaning all the taxpayers, do it, or do we do it in any particular way? Let us not have a goat that has escaped and say, yes, that's an escaped goat. It's a decision that is there now. The road is there and everything is there. What then do we do? It is those issues that we as this forum must actually address and ask how we proceed in a manner that sets a clear guideline for the future, because we are still going to have more of those. And what do we do?
We do need swift movement from East London to Durban. How are we going to pay for it? It must happen. There is no question about that. We were discussing that with the Eastern Cape premier. So this must happen. But how do we do it in a manner that is not going to punish people just because they are travelling? I think we need to do all those things.
Let me say thank you very much for the contributions. I thank the Deputy Minister Jeremy Cronin, the director-general George Mahlalela and the entire staff of the department. Thank you for the excellent contribution that you have made, although this raises more questions for us to deal with. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.