I am so glad the hon Kohler-Barnard made that interjection. It provides me with the opportunity to say this: The defence of the DA is the "whataboutery" defence. What about toilets in Gauteng? What about service delivery in the Eastern Cape? What about housing in the North West?
The Northern Ireland Nobel Peace Prize laureate, John Hume, coined the phrase "whataboutery". It refers to the art of diverting attention from uncomfortable questions about one's own performance to that of another's ... [Applause.] ... as if that excuses the provincial government from meeting its legal obligations to provide these services and to be held accountable for not doing so.
They love to quote - and their spokesperson has done so again this afternoon - from the Universal Household Access to Basic Services Report compiled by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The report uses household surveys - now listen carefully - conducted between 2001 and 2006. The DA only took over the City of Cape Town in the middle of 2006. These performances of service delivery that they so proudly proclaim are actually ANC achievements! [Applause.]
But, hon Chairperson, it seems that the DA spokesperson does not allow the truth to deter her from a good sound bite.
About the Khayelitsha infant deaths the party to my left has made huge noise, and we share that concern as well as the concern about the deaths of babies in the Eastern Cape. But let me talk to you about Khayelitsha infant deaths caused by diarrhoea-related infections. In 2010, 58 deaths in Khayelitsha occurred in children under the age of five years. In 2009, 60 children died. That is double the city average and 10 times more than that of the city's affluent southern suburbs. It was found - and denied - that it is so because of a lack of resources and neglect of sanitation infrastructure and maintenance.
In the words of Roger Nash Baldwin -
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.
We will tirelessly continue to do this, so as to ensure that we reach that time when we can all say that rights are not given to you, but that they are that which no one can take away from you. Indeed, together we can and should do more to achieve our rights. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.