Chairperson, I want to thank the hon members for what was a good debate. I want to start from where the hon Borman started. Much of what is happening on the ground in state-owned enterprises, SOEs, is world class. We often pay tribute to the kings and queens, the leaders, and forget that the people who do the work on the ground are the ones who actually withstand many difficulties.
I want to pay tribute to all our staff in all our SOEs, whoever they are, wherever they may be, whatever they may be doing, for the incredible work they do for all our SOEs, be they at Transnet; Eskom; SA Airways; SAA; SA Express; Denel; Broadband Infraco; the SA Forestry Company Ltd, Safcol; Alexkor; or the pebble bed modular reactor, PBMR. We pay tribute to all of them and we hope that their leadership present here today will convey our heartfelt gratitude to all of them for the work they do on behalf of our country. [Applause.]
The hon chairperson of the committee emphasised the important need for broadband access by the poor. That is why we are having discussions with Sentech to find synergy so that we are able to leverage mutual capacities and resources and do more, because sometimes duplications are not useful. We have stated this quite clearly and one of the reasons we have established the bimonthly meetings with the chairpersons and chief executive officers, CEOs, is to focus on the agenda for the poor, how many jobs we can create and which skills we can develop, and to raise the strategic issues that the President and the ruling party, the ANC, want us to deal with. That is going to emerge clearly because it is at the top of our agenda.
The hon Van Dyk raised important issues about the history of the electricity challenges that we are faced with. It is important for us to say that government does have long-term plans for electricity generation and we are looking at funding models in order to address the plans we have, to avoid exactly those problems we have had to face in the recent past. But what I find interesting, hon Van Dyk, is an almost silent criticism of the role played before 1994, that of denying the majority of our people electricity. [Applause.] You focus singularly on what happened post-1994, which is a sad excuse for Verwoerdian policies. It is quite sad. [Interjections.] Sir, I listened to you very carefully and I even tried to listen to the underlying message that is being communicated. I don't worry about the superficial things that people say.
With regard to BHP Billiton contracts, Eskom has already renegotiated the contracts and moved to cost reflectivity, but the Department of Public Enterprises wants them to move further to be closer to standard tariffs and has requested further engagement over the next two to three months.
With regard to electricity theft, the amount of electricity stolen is far below the figure that you, hon member, have presented here. For one reason or the other - it might be unparliamentary so I won't say what it was - but it is far below what you have presented here. We are discussing with the Ministers of Mineral Resources and Energy the issue of copper and electricity theft, and the interventions required in that regard. We should be able to do something to address those challenges.
We've addressed your concerns about funding issues and we need to say quite explicitly and unequivocally that we cannot avoid renewables. The fact that some of the technology might not be experimented with or tested doesn't mean that we should run away from renewables. We need to go in that direction for reasons of climate change and to ensure that our country plays its leading role in regard to addressing climate change concerns. The purpose of the International Marketing Council, IMC, which is often chaired by the Deputy President, is to harness our interventions and to bring together all the Ministers so that you don't have all of us moving parallel to each other when our agenda is the same. So, the concerns you are raising in regard to the IMC are properly addressed.
I will ignore what Mr Nhanha has said and will address it when he rejoins the ANC because he will have better ideas once he has done that.
The hon Oriani-Ambrosini raises issues which have no relevance to this debate. He says that we are debating transport, energy and defence policies and we were not. Defence policies are debated by the Budget Vote of the Department of Defence and Military Veterans, the transport policy by the Budget Vote of the Department of Transport and the energy policy by the Budget Vote of the Department of Energy. What we were dealing with here is the policy impact on SOEs of exactly those policies. What we were debating here are the operations by SOEs to address the policies and implement those policy directions that have been taken by different departments. We were not even debating the review of SOEs, which he seemed to trample.
It is important to say that we are engaging with the various Ministers of policy departments to align our work because it doesn't help for them to move in one direction and for us to move in another. There is rigorous work in that regard and I'm quite happy with what we are doing. Those meetings and engagements have already produced positive results for Transnet and Eskom, and we hope that they will produce positive results for the Chamber of Mines, the mining industry, and other sectors that rely on our SOEs.
Hon members know that we sometimes say "an argument often repeated becomes the truth". That's not true. It becomes stale. So, to repeat the same issues as the ones that have been raised over the past two years about the privatisation of SOEs doesn't make them become true. They have become stale and Dr Oriani-Ambrosini needs to find new issues to bring to the Budget Vote the next time he has the courtesy to moonlight on our Budget Vote. [Laughter.] The concerns that he raises will not be achieved by privatisation. There is already considerable progress within the SOE environment in respect of addressing many of these concerns. That is why we are happy to say that many of our SOEs are on a better footing.
Before I address the funding issues for SOEs, let me respond to hon Greyling. I reported that the African Development Bank approved a loan in US dollars for a solar power plant and we are going to begin to move more concretely in regard to that. We are further discussing with the World Bank about funding from the Clean Technology Fund and we hope that that will also allow us to make further progress.
The decline in the budget transfers to SOEs must be understood. Government says that SOEs are commercial enterprises. They've got to be on a positive balance sheet footing so that they are able to fund their capex programmes. But there is more that we are talking about. That is why in our presentation we raised the issue of a development-focused planning paradigm, the engagement with key stakeholders in the private sector such as mining, industrial and financial services, and the development finance institutions in order to leverage funding for our capex programmes. We are further looking at leveraging our people and operational procurements to ensure that we do have additional funding. We are introducing innovation in this co-operation with other departments, such as with Minister Nzimande of Higher Education and Training, so that we are able to fund our skills commitments and make progress in regard to the issues that need additional funding, which might not be covered in the budgets of our SOEs.
Unfortunately, Mr Van Dalen did not comment on any of the strategic issues that we were discussing here today and I think he weakened the debate, which had been at a high level. [Interjections.] Let me start by saying that with regard to the new multiproduct pipeline, NMPP, we took the initiative to analyse the cost escalations and are addressing that. With regard to Mr Gama, that was the decision of the board, which, hopefully, they had thoroughly considered. However, I don't want to get started on this case because if I were to, I would end up saying way too many things. But I want to state again that I supported the board of Transnet for taking the decision to reinstate Mr Gama.
When the hon Van Dalen said "In closing...", I actually wondered whether he had commenced at all. I was still waiting. [Laughter.] But, sir, I had no honeymoon. When we came here, there were urgent challenges that we had to address. We were told clearly by the President that we would have no honeymoon. We've not had any honeymoon. We will fasten our seat belts but fasten yours too. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.