Hon Madam Deputy Speaker, hon members, firstly, I would like to congratulate our new President, the hon J G Zuma, on his ascension to the highest office in our land, and to congratulate the new Leader of the Opposition and all other members. I had the privilege of working closely with the hon President for many years when we both served as MECs in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government. I see, Mr President, that you have left boys like me behind and steamed ahead. I wish you well, Msholozi. I know that you have a very difficult and challenging road ahead.
Before I turn to the state of the nation address I would like to just touch on a few current issues, one being the fact that today is World Environment Day. I think it is important for all of us in this House and for the President and the executive to reflect on what we have done as legislators to ensure that our natural resources are protected and preserved for future generations.
Whilst I do understand that we have progressive environmental legislation in place, the area of enforcement is still something that we all have to address. To this end, Mr President, and hon members, one of the areas, I think, that has to be given careful attention is the Durban South Basin. I remember very clearly when the then hon President Mandela and Deputy Minister Holomisa went to the Durban South Basin to address the issues of the people in that area. There is a high incidence of leukaemia and cancer, the incidence of which has been proven. I think we have to make sure that industries in those areas are made to comply with environmental regulations. If they can do so in other countries around the world, they must also do the same here in South Africa.
The second issue is the doctors that have been on strike and that have grievances. I think, Mr President, you have your work cut out for you in ensuring that your government gives serious attention to the concerns of these medical officers. As it is, we have a much-fractured health sector and we need to ensure that it doesn't fracture even more.
The third current issue is about what is going on in the SABC. The shenanigans in the SABC are not something that we as legislators can be proud of. We call, therefore, Mr President, for an urgent commission of inquiry into what is happening in the SABC, so that we can restore some faith in the public broadcaster by the citizens of South Africa.
Turning to the recession, when I stood here in February I said that in the past when the USA sneezed the rest of the world would catch a cold. But, unfortunately, they caught the cold first. We were sneezing four months ago, but now we have caught the cold and we have to find creative ways of dealing with this recession which is now impacting very, very seriously on all of us South Africans as well.
Concerning the state of the nation address, the aims of the new leadership as communicated are welcome. I think that we all, as servants of the people, aspire, amongst other things, to helping create an environment that is conducive to eradicating poverty, providing the masses with affordable good-quality housing and providing enough jobs to meet the demands of our growing population.
However, the difficulty lies in the ability to turn these and other noble objectives into reality. The hon President and his executive have the task of ensuring that the almost R657 billion per annum collected in taxes from South African taxpayers, through direct and indirect taxation, is used effectively. Taxpayers want value for money, and we trust that this executive will rise to the challenge, for we, as parliamentarians, will certainly be the watchdogs - the emphasis being on "watch" and not "dogs".
I think it is also important for us not to run the risk of number crunching - of throwing out numbers like 500 000 jobs, a million houses, etc, etc. Let us look at land reform. It is quite easy for us to be tempted to say that millions of hectares of land have been restored to people who were previously dispossessed of their land, but what we have to answer is: When that land was restored to those people, was sufficient support given to them by government to ensure that they have sustainable livelihoods; were poverty traps set for those people? That is the question.
When we look at the number of houses that are being built and that will be built, we shouldn't say that we have built a million houses. We should be looking carefully at the quality of the houses. Do people feel safe in those houses, when there is wind, when there is rain, when there are storms, do they feel safe? [Applause.]
When we talk about the number of jobs, I hope, Mr President, that your hon Ministers have already created some 8 000 jobs between the day of your speech and today, because if we look at the number of working days to the end of December, it is about 4 000 jobs a day that they need to create. [Applause.]
When we look at policing, it is good enough to say that we will have extra policemen and women on the beach, but is the quality of service acceptable to us as South Africans? We have to focus on quality. We have heard numbers before: "One settler, one bullet!" Well, we are glad that that is a thing of the past. But there has also been: "One food parcel, one vote." [Applause.] And that must be a thing of the past. We need to ensure that we instil pride and self-worth in South Africans. We must not have a culture of dependency. People need to be given the tools and instruments to allow them to develop themselves. This is going to be the responsibility of this government.
I want to say to the former Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, now the Minister of Transport, that I think, Minister, you have been given a poisoned chalice in trying to deal with the bus rapid transit system. But we wish you well and hope that you can deal with that sooner rather than later.
In conclusion, as I said on behalf of the IFP, we support the aims as espoused by the hon President, but we will be watching very carefully, monitoring and evaluating the performance of this executive. I thank you. [Applause.]