Chairperson, Minister, hon members, I was a member of the Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises between 1999 and 2001. In that period the Eskom leadership made presentations to us about the need to build new power stations as generation capacity was likely to be overtaken by demand at around 2008. It is now a known fact that the government did not give Eskom permission to build new power stations, which was a big mistake. This has been acknowledged, regret expressed and a public apology tendered by the government at the highest level. Recriminations followed, of course, and intensified, especially with the advent of load shedding. Up to this day recriminations are continuing.
Eskom belongs to all of us as a nation, and the service it provides is absolutely crucial for our economic activities, comfort and good health. Continued recriminations are now pointless. We should bite the bullet as a nation and provide this company with the resources it needs to build new power stations and maintain existing assets. This might be in the form of a modest tariff increase, coupled with a once-off tax and approach to the markets and, of course, investment by the shareholder. If we don't do this, we might in the future rue the fact that we differed when decisive action was required, and the attraction of a once-off tax is that it could target only those with the means to pay. Whatever the present difficulties, Minister, we agree with you that the Eskom build programme must continue.
The capacity for research and development, as well as engineering expertise in our state-owned enterprises, is not inconsiderable. They are capable of incubating new industries or spawning new companies. All we need is to use the recently passed Intellectual Property Rights From Publicly Financed Research and Development Act to protect and exploit as much intellectual property as possible from research activities in our state-owned enterprises. For this to happen more effectively and efficiently, we need to soften the boundaries between the state-owned enterprises and the private sector, so as to promote more effortless collaboration among them. This is what other more successful nations the world over do. Going to the moon or space exploration in general, for example, is an expensive business with very little direct commercial value, but the bigger value in such activities is in research, development and innovation, the generation of intellectual property, which leads to new products, new industries and the development of human technology and capacity.
In our own case, we have seen the development of versatile engineers at Denel who took part in the design and building of the Rooivalk helicopter, the same people participating in the building of the Southern African Large Telescope in Sutherland, which incidentally is the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere, and the same people leading the work, design and building of South Africa's first battery-driven car.
We will not, as a country, effectively tackle the trade deficit with the rest of the world as long as we export mainly raw materials and import almost all goods containing intellectual property.
If we run our state-owned enterprises properly, fund them adequately and align their activities properly with our economic priorities, we will reap pleasing benefits. State-owned enterprises are valuable assets that may be harnessed for public good.
THE HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M N Oliphant): Hon member, your time has expired.