Chairperson, I was just saying that Ms Kohler did a great job. I cannot repeat or go back to what you have just said. Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon members, all protocol observed. It is perhaps imperative that we go back in history in order to understand how we got here - that which Ms Kohler has just alluded to. In the 1800s diamonds were discovered in the Northern Cape, resulting in a scramble for dominance of the area between the two contending colonial powers, that is, the British Imperial Crown and the Dutch settler contingent. I will not dwell much on the tussle between the two as it is adequately captured by history, but I want to focus on the product it created - the economic system that emerged, driven by nothing but the exploitation of the new-found source of wealth and the abundant but recalcitrant potential labour pool.
A construct was devised by Cecil John Rhodes, with the assistance of his cohorts, to facilitate the extraction of the quarry. The essence of the construct was to reduce the indigenous people to perpetual servitude, continually beholden to the system for survival through the introduction of a myriad of laws aimed at eroding their freedom in the land of their ancestors. The construct took on a variety of mutations over the years of our subjugation. The National Development Plan, in which this proposed budget is anchored, is another mutation of the same construct as that created by Cecil John Rhodes, and the outcomes will continue to remain the same. This is epitomised by the conduct of the SA National Roads Agency Ltd, Sanral, in Gauteng, with the support of the municipal police and the criminalisation of communities for using the roads they had paid for a long time ago - all in the quest for creating a national patriotic bourgeoisie.