Hon Speaker, in his last state of the nation address in this House, former President Nelson Mandela said, and I quote:
The public is justified in demanding better service, more respect and greater concern for their needs rather than self-aggrandisement.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the general response to this year's address has been as disappointing as the occasion itself, as it failed to inspire a nation desperate and impatient for the promise of a better life for all.
The ID is disappointed that the President did not find the time to provide some semblance of hope to the millions of South Africans who are steadily losing faith in our ability to provide decent health care, yet he found the time to thank Dr Irvin Khoza for his contributions to soccer! [Laughter.]
There are still people dying in Mpumalanga because hospitals do not have essential medicines in stock. The central pharmaceutical depot in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, which should provide life-saving medicine to hospitals and clinics in the region, does not even have a pharmacist.
Meanwhile, overspending has become the norm in almost all provincial health departments. Clinics in the Free State have had their electricity cut off for nonpayment. The shortage of doctors and general health care workers has reached epidemic proportions in the North West and KwaZulu-Natal.
In addition, more than half of the people who need ARVs in Limpopo don't have access to them because of a chronic shortage of funds. To top this all off, a culture of poor planning, mismanagement, incompetence and corruption has permeated our public health care system.
It is now time to finally prioritise the filling of all vacancies and to adequately fund the public health care sector. This government must find creative ways of channelling some of the resources of the private sector into public health care and we must ensure that the administrations at all our hospitals are held accountable to the highest standards.
Over the past 15 years we have spent more on education than most other developing nations in the world and the ID believes we still do not have enough to show for it. We remain concerned about the massive inequalities in education, which have once again emerged in the recent matric results, where schools in wealthier areas have yet again fared better than those in poor areas.
Mr President, we have lost our sense of urgency. The previous President stood on this very podium in 2005 and promised that within two years every school will have electricity, water and sanitation and that no child would be taught under a tree or in a mud hut.
Two years later, there is no more talk about this promise. Six months after 61 schools were destroyed in the Eastern Cape, children from rural communities are still being taught under trees in the searing heat. There are still schools in our country, 15 years after democracy, which do not have basic facilities such as toilets and libraries.
This is the real state of the nation. As we stand here today on the verge of destroying the dreams and the legacy of our former President Nelson Mandela, I am reminded of the words of the journalist Amanda Ngudle, when she wrote: Perhaps what has diminished the Mandela legacy is that while he planted the seeds, his successors didn't water the trees.
I thank you. [Applause.]