Chairperson, thank you very much to the speakers and parties that have participated in this debate and particularly for the spirit in which they participated. I am really, quite touched by that, because even in our dark past, this is one area where apartheid could not be implemented.
You could have separate hospitals, separate schools, separate residences and so forth, but there would be no separate roads for whites, there would be no separate robots for Africans and so forth. This is one place where apartheid was not implementable.
The spirit of the House, starting from yesterday, from the Minmec, was that this is a doing department here to serve all our people, irrespective of whatever locality they are at. They will need transport and the spirit displayed by the House here is a very important beginning for all of us.
I will respond to some of the issues raised here. Comrade Newhoudt-Druchen raised the issue of signage, for example. I think those issues must be taken on board immediately, because the issue of ensuring that there is this equal treatment of our people no matter what must be noted. We should reach out and we really thank you for the input you have made.
I will just be making random comments. We have concluded, as a department, the national, provincial and municipal network assessment of roads and the infrastructure required. Overload control is one of the major issues that we want to be concentrating on. That is why the issue of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa Prasa has become so important to ensure that there is absolute efficiency at that level, so that we don't have freight companies preferring road because rail will be inefficient. The damage to the country's economy is really not measurable, if you have got those massive trucks on the road carrying things that could easily be carried on rail and rail is where the country has already invested, if the rail is not used, it then lies idle whereas there is no shortage of road users. We want to ensure that these efficiencies are sorted out by ourselves.
The issue of road safety, as we know from experience, is an issue that we can do something about. That is why, starting with the driving licences going through these demerits systems, we have spoken about it too long, we have spoken about the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences, Aarto, so that we do not clog our courts. We are through with the legal part of it and it's now going to be implementation. All of us agree that we must now go and implement that.
If you know that the licence that you have, is on loan to you and you keep on accumulating penalties, it is going to be taken away from you. There is no psychological difference between a driver in the Netherlands, a driver in Sweden and a South African driver. It is a well-known fact that there are dire consequences.
Suddenly you have got a car, but you need somebody else to drive you and that person will ask you, where are you going, why is it necessary for you to go there? A car is freedom and transport is freedom to move and suddenly you are deprived of that. It is a promise that we make to all our people in South Africa that from now on the demerit system is coming.
The enforcement part of our road safety is now with us and we are completely committed to it as the Department of Transport, because we want to leave the hospital beds for people who really are sick, who cannot avoid being there, and not the person who is healthy and suddenly has a broken leg and so forth. That is not acceptable. So, there's complete commitment from colleagues, MECs, traffic officers and the members of the mayoral committees, and in all municipalities there is commitment to ensure that you can do, whatever you do but not in the city, not here.
As long as we take that attitude and say they can drive whatever they drive, but where I am in charge as a municipality or as a province, no. That would also go up to the province and say as you enter the Western Cape, well we don't know how you behave somewhere else, but as you enter Western Cape or KwaZulu-Natal, it is no nonsense and you know it. The behaviour changes accordingly and of course the consequences to the driving licence are key.
We are excited and hopeful that the issue of the taxi industry is coming to an end now as an issue of conflict. During the campaign in Dutywa, people raised the issue of the Bus Rapid Transit BRT, System to the President as their concern. There will be no BRT in Dutywa for the next 50 years, but people are complaining about it.
We really want to close that chapter and acknowledge the taxi industry as a critical component of the public transport system. It carries quite a lot of our people - more than 60% of our people. We are encouraged by the way we have engaged with them before 11 June up to now and even by the way they have prepared for the process of the joint working group which starts on 6 July which is on Monday. I was told yesterday that the taxi industry was making a joint submission of their names and so forth, who are going to participate in this process.
That process is such that the people from the government side will be decision-makers, from the National Department of Transport, provincial departments of transport and the affected cities, these will be decision- makers, similarly from the taxi industry these must be decision-makers.
They will take decisions that are very popular and they will take decisions that are not quite so popular, but they must not be disowned. You cannot have this side of people and we agree with them and suddenly you say: no, it's not this, but the other.
The type of leadership I have seen at national level and the leadership that we have engaged with in the taxi industry give us the confidence that we will reach an agreement with them. We know that this agreement will stick.
We really appreciate their presence here and their participation. We look forward to next week to start the process and by the end of August we will have an interim report. We will really have concluded that part of it by October. This process does not mean that Mayor Masondo's process, which is on track in Johannesburg, stops until the full agreement and signatures on the dotted line and everything; the process goes on, but we ensure that the full participation and consultation is on.
We are not worried about limiting, because none of us want to say the taxi industry will be limited to this and that the taxi industry will not be limited. Just like when dealing with farmers, you say you produce milk and you have nothing to do with yoghurt, you have nothing to do with butter. You participate according to your capacity and you move on and we who are committed to Black Economic Empowerment will ensure that we encourage the industry because it is one of the few industries in which particularly the black people bring something to the table.
Three vehicles, seven vehicles, and you don't just come up with a BCom degree and assume that you will be a director without working. Your name will not just be included as a director if you have done nothing. They come with something already and they have operated under very difficult conditions in the past. Now you have your industry, your own people that you are serving and you also have your government. The government will not interfere or restrict their full participation in the economy of our country and beyond. I think we have a very good start in that process.
Finally, I really want to say that I am very appreciative of the spirit in the House and also of the spirit of the extended Minmec that went on yesterday from the provinces and the affected cities, all twelve of them. As we roll out for the 2010 World Cup, we know that even the soccer league has been shortened so that we will have a number of dry runs for the World Cup. We also want to have a lasting legacy for South Africa which is going to be efficient, affordable and safe transport in our country. Thank you for your participation and let us get ready to move our people. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.