Chairperson, before I specifically address people in the House I would first like to address those who are outside the House and remind them that the Department of Home Affairs is part of the security of this country. So, while we have the right, according to the Constitution, as Members of Parliament and as members of the public to debate, we must also take into account our interests as a nation.
I'm not going to talk about apartheid here, because people go crazy when one mentions the word. But this is our history. Apartheid was declared a crime against humanity. Obviously, the system was there because it had support: people voted for it and sustained it, while others were fighting it. The interesting thing about all this is which section of our community it is that is now finding it necessary to campaign all over the world, saying this country is a crime capital, counting the number of babies who die per day, the number of people raped per hour, per second - people have amazing statistics. You would have expected that section of our community to have made known the number of people killed by security forces, per hour, per day, per second, at the time when that serious crime was committed against humanity. This did not happen.
Those people who are talking would keep quiet, if they were sober and sensible. The World Cup is coming and it's mostly about rebranding South Africa and Africa. We know there is no money to be made in this thing. Our people and the government are paying for it, but the bigger picture is rebranding, for medium-term and long-term economic benefits. In my view, the people who like to portray us as a crime capital are foolish. They are shooting themselves in the foot. If you analyse the situation in our country, businesspeople who have big businesses such as hotels will benefit from this World Cup. Yet they are the very people who are campaigning against the country - although they were not campaigning during the crime of apartheid. Ordinary, poor people don't have such businesses. They will have small stalls far away from this thing.
This is the point I'm trying to make to those who are listening and have ears: During your consistent campaign to brand us a crime capital, you were joined by the Europeans, as reported by a gentleman from Germany, the United Kingdom and their right-wing tabloids, which ran exaggerated sensational headlines such as, "Don't go to that country! You'll be killed by elephants, baboons and rapists! You need to have equipment if you go there!" The point is, you don't know this is an economic war. Those Europeans are just not playing the game. They know that if this country is successfully rebranded, tourists will come here and their economies will be affected. They don't want that.
While people here are playing racist and crime games, they are losing business to those Europeans. Whether they are racist or not, they are South Africans. We are losing business and those people are gaining business. As a consequence, ticket sales and bookings are slow. I don't know if they realise that they've campaigned against themselves. This is what has happened. I want to make this point to those people out there.
On the other hand, people like to go to newspapers selectively when they debate. Let me follow what they normally do. Today I read a newspaper. I read about a German expert on security. This gentleman is a chairperson of a committee and came here for fact finding. He is now reporting in Germany. He says, "We are impressed by the South African leadership and the preparation of security arrangements." He goes on to say, "It is perfect." The same gentleman blames these tabloids. He says, "There is no problem in South Africa; we are happy."
Before him, I heard a lady from the United States on a radio talk show. When there was a debate about readiness, she also assured business, saying, "We are working with South Africans; our citizens are coming here to watch and play football; we are happy about security." It's funny because on that talk show it was South Africans who were saying, "We are not ready". [Laughter.] This American woman had to defend us! This is the madness we have in this country.
Hon Minister, I want to bring something to your attention, if you were not aware of it. When we were doing oversight visits to check the readiness of our cities, we went to the Crown Mines Refugee Centre. There we found that they had "peace boards". These refugee peace boards are small compared to the job at hand, and they had to move around the country. A suggestion was made that these need to be broadened. Secondly, with regard to the procedures, apparently people abuse the system. They apply for refugee status, they lose, and then they appeal, knowing there is a backlog in the appeal process. Given the liberality of our Constitution, once they are appeal applicants, other rights can be exploited. And so, gradually, they gain more rights to be South Africans. This is the game they are playing. The suggestion was then made that perhaps there should be a pre-appeal process, whereby only appeals that have merit will be heard and the others can fall through the system.
Another issue, and I've made this point before, is no matter what we are doing security-wise from the perspective of the Department of Home Affairs and its systems, we can't do these things perfectly as an island. We need to continue to pursue our Southern African Development Community, SADC, neighbours to join us. We can have a perfect system here but if people are going through our neighbours to come to us, we won't be able to contain the situation. Therefore, we need to enjoin them to come on board so that we have integrated policies and systems. I know it's going to take a while, but we need to continue to fight that war.
Lastly, I would like to answer some of the issues raised here by our fellow South Africans in the House. I observed that the other parties heard that the department is doing well but it's difficult for them to admit it. [Laughter.] Hon fellow South Africans, when it comes to debate, we need to raise policy issues. If you get reports from the public, remember not to change them. File them ...