Hansard: NA: Unrevised hansard
House: National Assembly
Date of Meeting: 26 Nov 2019
Summary
No summary available.
Minutes
UNREVISED HANSARD
TUESDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2019
Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4MYTCXH5ts&t=9574s
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
The House met at 14:00.
The Deputy Speaker took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayers or meditation.
The DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Deputy
Speaker, I move that the House suspends the Rule, which provides for the rotation of clusters for Questions to Ministers on a weekly basis ... no, no. Hon Speaker, I move that the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill and Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill be adopted.
The SPEAKER: Hon members, I now put the motion. Are there any objections? Our apologies, can we start afresh? Can we have the Chief Whip to deal with the first item on the Order Paper?
SUSPENSION OF RULE 138(2)
(Draft Resolution)
The DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Hon Speaker,
I move the Draft Resolution printed in the name of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party on the Order Paper, as follows:
That the House suspends Rule 138(2), which provides for the rotation of clusters for Questions to Ministers on a weekly basis, in order to conduct a question session for Cluster 5: Economics on Tuesday, 3 December 2019.
Question put: That the motion be agreed to.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon members, that’s the motion. Are there any objections? No objections.
Motion agreed to.
RESUMPTION OF BUSINESS ON BILLS
(Draft Resolution)
The DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Hon Speaker,
I move the Draft Resolution printed in the name of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party on the Order Paper, as follows:
That the House resumes proceedings on the following Bills, from the respective stages they reached on the last day of the Sixth Session of the Fifth Parliament:
(1) Public Finance Management Amendment Bill [B 41
- 2018] (National Assembly – sec 76); and
(2) National Public Health Institute of South Africa Bill [B 16D - 2017] (National Assembly – sec 76).
Question put: That the motion be agreed to.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I now put the motion, are there any objections? No objections. Motion agreed to. Members
allow me to acknowledge the presence of a delegation from the parliamentary service commission of the Parliament of Malawi who are on study visit to our Parliament in the gallery on my left, over there. They are led by hon Dr George Chaponda. [Applause.] You are welcomed to our Parliament, hon members.
CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
- RATES AND MONETARY AMOUNTS AND AMENDMENT OF REVENUE LAWS BILL
CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
- TAXATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE
- TAX ADMINISTRATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
The DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Deputy
Speaker, I hereby move that the Reports be adopted.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon members, the motion is that the Reports be adopted. Are there any objections?
Question put: That the Reports be agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
Report on Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill accordingly adopted.
Report on Taxation Laws Amendment Bill accordingly adopted.
Report on Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill accordingly adopted.
RATES AND MONETARY AMOUNTS AND AMENDMENT OF REVENUE LAWS BILL
(First Reading Debate)
TAXATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
(First Reading Debate)
TAX ADMINISTRATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
(Second Reading Debate)
Mr M J MASWANGANYI: How many minutes do I have? TABLE STAFF MEMBER: Ten minutes!
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Alright, don’t worry about the clock sir, they will sort it out. Don’t panic.
Mr M J MASWANGANYI: Deputy Speaker, allow me to table the Standing Committee on Finance Report on Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill, Taxation Laws Amendment Bill and Tax Administration Amendment Bill as tabled by the Minister of Finance in the February tabling of the Budget.
These Bills are legal instruments for the SA Revenue Service, Sars, to collect and administer revenue. The SA Revenue Service is charged with the responsibility to collect and administer revenue through the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act and other applicable tax legislation.
We present these reports against the background of the challenges of the collection of revenue. Revenue collection has not kept pace with economic growth. The economy is now expected to grow by just 0,5%, compared with 1,5% forecast at the time of the 2019 Budget tabling. Weak economic growth resulted in repeated revenue shortfalls, higher budget deficits and mounting government debt. We have challenges of state-owned enterprises, SOEs, regarding bailouts. This is the matter that the committee has observed and we request the Minister to attend to this issue.
Other factors contributing to the poor revenue performance has to deal with the poor employment outlook with job losses, lower wage settlement, smaller bonuses and reduced personal income tax collection.
On The Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill [B17-2019], on 3 September 2019, National Treasury and Sars briefed the committee on this Bill. The committee received submissions from different industries including the tobacco industry which complained about the high excise duties.
However, because we have a campaign to reduce smoking, the Treasury started its projection of the excise duty increase. We also want to raise the problem of “no refund” shops where government is not able to collect revenue. There are also a lot of counterfeit goods which are dumped here in South Africa, through that; we are not able to raise revenue. The other Bill that has been tabled by the Minister is the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill [B18-2019].
The Bill is about the reviewing of the tax treatment of the surviving spouses’ pension. This amendment seeks to relieve the surviving spouses of additional tax liability and to alleviate the financial burden.
The reviewing of allowable deductions for investors in a Venture Capital Company, VCC, and the refinement of the Employment Incentive Scheme also the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, the amendments of Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill are technical corrections of the Income Tax Act of 1962; the Customs and Excise Act of 1964; the Skills Development Levies Act of 1999.
All of this is done to align time periods for a refund under this Act to the Tax Administration Act of 2011; and the Tax Administration Act of 2011. The committee supports and request the House to approve the Bills. Hon Speaker, I move for the adoption. Thank you.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon Maswanganyi, you mustn’t insist on what you have just said.
Mr G G HILL-LEWIS: Mr Deputy Speaker ... [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you very much, that is more accurate. [Laughter.]
Mr G G HILL-LEWIS: ... sir, from the outset of the medium-term budget process, the DA has focused on one question, whether the proposals by the government help to advance fairness in our society. We understand that to govern is to choose. No government can have everything, or satisfy every want.
That is why this government is ethically obliged to make choices which are fair to the country and that means
choosing to prioritise the basic services on which the poor depend and choosing to emphasise investment over consumption.
And it means protecting the incomes of working families, over the ideology of out-of-touch policymakers.
The Bills before us today, Minister, contain a stealthy R12 billion effective tax increase for working families. This is done by failing to adjust tax brackets upwards for inflation.
This R12 billion in additional revenue comes straight from the pockets of every hardworking South African.
Is that fair? No, it is not fair. And it is not ethically defensible. The government has prioritised bailouts for zombie state-owned entities, and has prioritised the salaries of millionaire managers in the civil service, over the working families who are already struggling to get through the month.
These good, hardworking people have faced electricity increases, petrol tax increases, VAT increases, public transport increases, and school fee increases. Their jobs are less and less certain, and their wages have been growing slower than inflation, year after year.
These are the people who you are expecting to pay for this tax increase. These are the people paying more of their hard-earned wages every month to bailout SA Airways, SAA, and Eskom, and to keep millionaire managers in the sheltered comfort to which they have become far too accustomed.
Is that fair, hon members?
HON MEMBERS: No!
Mr G G HILL-LEWIS: No, it is not fair. And it is not ethically defensible. So, last week the DA showed that the party that claims to govern for the poor, is in fact cutting R50 billion in services to the poor. And today the DA is showing that the party that claims to govern for the working classes is making working families pay
R12 billion more in taxes. That is the truth of this Budget.
The truth is that the ANC is not the party of the poor and it is not the party of the working classes, to answer your question. And the truth is that no matter how much you use race rhetoric, real empowerment requires hard decisions. It is the party that governs for the new elite of millionaire managers in the civil service, and multi- millionaire deployed cadres in the zombie SOEs. And in this budget process, we have shown as we have shown today in Technicolor that only the DA is committed to using the levers of government to create a fairer society, where the interests of the poor and of working families are protected and advanced. Thank you.
Ms M R MOHLALA: Deputy Speaker, Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill; Taxation Laws Amendment Bill and the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill are crucial for the sustenance of the country. In the past, we have witnessed these Bills presented as nothing else but Bills that deals with administration of tax, Bills
that are always rushed, not given serious consideration and often processed within a short space of time.
But the reality is that these Bills have serious implications of the lives of our people, and things are not getting better for them. In South Africa, it is workers who bear the tax burden the most, who experience tax increases every year, who are left penniless month- to-month as the cost of living has shackled them into permanent poverty.
Value Added Tax, VAT, was increased from 14 to 15% with an impression that decision will be reviewed, the cost of bread, milk, millie-meal and all other stable foods. The cost of transport, electricity and housing has increased. South African workers are amongst the highly taxed in the world and things are getting worse. Tax by employees continues when wages have not increased.
The reality is that the value of wages today is less than the value of yesterday’s wages, and the rate of tax is of tomorrow’s wages. The Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Bill wants to raise
R12,8 billion from personal income tax, from which wages? The workers are asking, where should the money come from?
The Ruling Party and SA Revenue Services, SARS, has deliberately failed to build the necessary capacity to deal with all forms of illicit financial flows and base erosion activities. Illicit tobacco trade, illicit counterfeits goods, illicit illegal movement of undeclared minerals, chrome, platinum, gold and others, and also illegal forms of payment that are not declared to SARS.
While SARS tells us that the revenue loses as a result of illicit tobacco trade amounting to R9 billion every year, international institution like Global Financial Integrity, Africa Monitor, Tax Justice and the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime, all estimates that South Africa loses more than R200 billion every year because of illicit financial flows and base erosions.
To deal with illicit financial flows decisively, the EFF’s General Anti-Avoidance of Tax Bill, puts in place comprehensive measures including harsh penalties for the
biggest culprits, the directors of banks, audit companies and bulk of multinational businesses. The Bill is in its final drafting stages. Lastly, amendment to continue with Employment Incentive Skill that encourages employment of young people when all the evidence shows that the whole thing has failed should be considered theft of taxpayer’s money.
Unemployment is currently sitting at 29% and the majority of people unemployed are young people. Unemployment amongst young people is more than 50% and it’s on the rise, including graduate with post-matric qualification. All that has been achieved with the Employment Incentive Skill is to benefit middlemen and companies, when young people remain languishing in the streets.
The Administration Bills are a sign that the Ruling Party has no believable plans to raise revenue in a believable way. The Ruling Party continues to support big businesses and with tax incentives they do not deserve instead of increased company income tax. SARS has no believable plan of how to tax technological companies like Uber, Google
and Takealot that continues to aggressively avoid paying tax. The EFF rejects these Bills. [Applause.]
Inks E M BUTHELEZI: Hon Deputy Speaker and members, fiscus as a liability and the provision of public service delivery is premised upon two distinct pillars, firstly, the efficient and effective collection of monies through our various taxes, and secondly, the efficient and effective use thereof by government in their spending.
In the first instance, it is necessary that out tax administration and collection of revenues held the highest standards. Tax law enforcement must be capacitated and those persons and companies who are found trading products in the market for illicit goods, for example, tobacco, should be investigated and successfully prosecuted.
In the second instance, responsible, ethical and lawful administration, and use of the fiscus by government when spending is critical, particularly when we find ourselves caught at a crossroad. Hon members, in terms of the Tax Law Amendment Bill, we support the consolidated
regulations especially as they relate to electronic services.
But we would like to seek better distinction between business-to-business and business-to-customer. We don’t want to see additional barriers emerged in the open market space between businesses as they can only negatively impact economic growth. Hon Deputy Speaker, social transformation is heavily dependant on the taxation of the private sector.
The sector is well placed to create jobs and to lift our people out of dire circumstances. But we must be honest in asking ourselves if we are taking the right measures to showcase our country as an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. Hon Deputy Speaker, on the domestic front, we must address the crisis of youth unemployment. We applaud the efforts in the refinement of the Employment Incentive Skill, the Pay As You Earn, and we fully support the mechanisms which will improve our system to ensure that we continue to monitor and evaluate current programmes in government.
Therefore, the committee’s recommendation on the study to be conducted by SARS and National Treasury in looking at the successes and challenges of the Employment Tax Incentives is critical, in order to get this right. Hon members, we will never be able to address the ills of social inequality, the indignity of poverty and the desperation of hunger if we don’t get our people to work, into training and ownership, and future wealth creations.
We must ensure that our tax incentives are not too complex to drive away voluntary take-ups of the incentives. We should send the message to all private companies that, as simple as it sounds, tax incentives are exactly as simple as they are. Hon Deputy Speaker, in conclusion, the IFP employs government to seriously consider the establishment of a Chapter 9 Integrity Commission which will be able to independently investigate and prosecute those involved in corruption in our public service.
The IFP supports the recommendations and the Bills. Thank you. [Applause.]
Mr S N SWART: Deputy Speaker, as the other speakers have indicated, these Tax Amendment proposals were part of 2019 budget announced on 20 February by the Minister, but have only been processed recently due to the May elections and the changes in the administration. Now we know that the fiscal outlook has deteriorated significantly since February, where the budget has set to be far high at 5,9% up from 4,5% of Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
This is mainly as the result of slow in economic growth of 0,5% and this then of course results in lower tax revenue, and of course in other side we see increased support to state-owned enterprises, SOEs, as you, Minister, have indicated, where does this money going to come from? It has to come from somewhere. We also see a staggering increase in the government debt of R3 trillion to R4,5 trillion or 71,3% of GDP by 2022-23.
So, it is thus crucial to collect all outstanding taxes that are due, and of course it is critical that there must be legitimacy to tax collection. Fallen civil years of tax increases, there’s very little space to increase
taxes, and we know the average South African is already overtaxed. As far as these Amendments to the personal income tax are concerned, the proposals, as the previous speakers have indicated, aim to raise R12,8 billion from not adjusting the tables for inflation. In other words, that’s the bracket creep.
This is directly going to be taken from your working class and the middle class, which will have fewer funds to spend. The other reports deal with submissions on the tax and tobacco industry. It is also argued that steps have to be taken to address illicit tobacco industry, and there seem to be like R9 billion that should be collected. Now, the issue there is not so much to freeze and exercise duty on the so-called sin taxes.
Minister, we fully support the sin taxes, but the tobacco industries obviously said that there should be a freeze on that because it will result in job losses and reduced income. We therefore agree with the committee that the increase in illicit tobacco product is as a result of weak law enforcement and tax administration challenges at SARS, and that needs to be addressed.
Also, we agree that the committee needs to focus more on Monetary Law Enforcement to stop the illicit of tobacco trade as well as monitoring the improving SARS capacity. This is part of what was lacking in the Fifth Parliament. We must make sure that we exercise sufficient and efficient oversight. We saw in the Fifth Parliament an estimated R50 billion loss of revenue per year. We are now paying the price of state capture and corruption.
So, this is an issue which we feel very strongly about, but we regret the R12,8 billion which will come from the working class. Thank you.
Ms Z NKOMO: Thank you Deputy Speaker and hon members, tax revenues are critical to the functioning of any democracy, even if this fact might have previously been taken for granted by many citizens. Lower tax collections have serious consequences and can impact everyone, whether it is through lower expenditures on education, health or through increases in tax rates to make up for shortfalls. The ability of a government to borrow at reasonable interest rates is also dependent on its ability to collect taxes.
The ANC supports efforts by President Ramaphosa’s government of rebuilding important state institutions. In delivering his state of the nation address in 2018, President Ramaphosa committed that his government will take steps to stabilise the SA Revenue Service, Sars, restore its credibility and strengthen its capacity to meet revenue targets. The President further declared to the nation that this government is keenly aware of the need to demonstrate that the tax revenue collected from their hard-earned income is being used wisely, productively and for its intended purpose.
As the ANC, we remain accountable to the people of this country. We also support the National Treasury in its efforts to strengthen financial management through assisting the Sars to regularise VAT refund payments and rebuild capacity.
The tax revenue shortfalls over the past few years have partly been due to the fact that the economy has been growing slower than had been projected. However, we cannot ignore the potential impact of a reduction in the effectiveness of tax administration. Tax avoidance and
evasion will be on the rise in any economy which is growing more slowly and where taxes have been increased.
A strong, capable and effective revenue authority must be there to limit those activities and make sure that the correct amount of revenue continues to be collected. We call upon the National Treasury to improve its oversight role over Sars and assist it in comprehensively addressing the current governance challenges to maximise revenue collection and restore its credibility as a key institution that should always uphold its reputation.
Given the recent events around Sars, the current leadership have a huge task ahead of it to regain the trust and confidence from the South African public. We call upon the Sars Commissioner, Mr Mark Kingon, to address challenges facing Sars which should include stability of leadership and staff morale. This is because to be able to regain public confidence, the Sars must have employees ready to ensure that when citizens raise concerns; these are addressed efficiently and speedily.
We support efforts by current Sars management to enhance efficiency and provide a better service to large businesses as they have reinstated the Large Business Centre dealing with tax affairs of all major companies. This has benefits for large, medium and small business. Large businesses with complex tax affairs are now receiving dedicated focus and support, while the bulk of the Sars officials are freed up to pay more attention to servicing medium and small businesses.
In relation to the administration of international trade across our borders and the collection of much-needed revenue, we call upon Sars to continuously enhance its operations by providing a seamless and responsive service to all our citizens; enhancing processes and leveraging technology to make it easier for compliant clients to discharge their fiscal responsibilities; and comprehensively addressing noncompliance and illicit activities that pose a risk to South Africa’s economic and physical security.
It is important to also highlight the positive outcomes of policies that have made positive contribution to our
citizens’ lives in the democratic era. The Employment Tax Incentive boosts job creation. The Employment Tax Incentive was introduced on 1 January 2014 to share the cost of hiring young inexperienced workers between employers and government. The incentive was reviewed and extended in 2016 and 2018. The most recent review found that the incentive’s positive benefits are more pronounced in smaller firms.
In 2015-16 about 31 000 employers claimed the incentive for 1,1 million individuals. The tax expenditure associated with the incentive amounted to R4,3 billion in 2017-18. The National Economic Development and Labour Council, Nedlac, conducted a review of the incentives drawing on independent research on the effects of the programme in 2014-15 and 2015-16. The review found that the number of employees and employment growth rates increased significantly in firms claiming the incentive.
The effects were most pronounced in firms with less than
50 employees, though positive effects was held for all firm sizes. There is no significant evidence that the incentive displaces older workers. The incentive improves
employment growth in firms that were growing before claiming, and firms with shrinking employment, demonstrating that it also plays a role in halting job losses. Employers tend to retain workers after the two- year eligible period passes because the employees have gained experience and on-the-job training. Young workers indicated that the incentive created opportunities they would not otherwise have.
The ANC, as a liberation movement, is still driven by the spirit of the President of the ANC and father of the nation, Tata Madiba and his word:
As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.
Thank you. [Applause.]
Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Thank you hon Deputy Speaker, let me start of by saying that, yes, increase in tax is a burden
particularly to the poorest of the poor. The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing on a daily basis in South Africa. It has not made positive impact on the lives of the poorest of the poor.
In South Africa, Health, Police Service and Social Development are underbudgeted, but there are hundreds of billions of rands that are being embezzled or stolen through corruption, fraud and maladministration.
The NFP welcomes the reports that are here. We note that the purpose of this Bill is to deal with changes in rates and monetary thresholds. The NFP welcomes the increase particularly on alcohol and tobacco.
I am not sure why some of the members seem to take offense particularly to the increase in taxes on alcohol because it is common knowledge in South Africa that alcohol is the most single item that has a massive impact on crime and health. Unless we deal with this thing so that it becomes a deterrent so that people can begin to reduce the consumption of alcohol and particularly tobacco; the challenges that the health sector and the
socioeconomic conditions face will continue. I think we need to support it particularly when we increase taxes on tobacco and alcohol.
We welcome the amendment being sought to relieving surviving spouses of additional tax liability alleviating financial burdens when withholding taxes by the retirement funds on spousal pensions. I think this must be welcome because it has a positive impact particularly on those spouses who have estates of the deceased because the amounts that they generally have to pay with regard to taxes and things, is a serious challenge for these people in South Africa.
On the proposal to review allowable deductions for investors in a venture capital company, we note the resistance and submissions made.
The introduction of the Employee Tax Incentive in 2014 to promote the employment of young workers between the ages of 18 to 29 was welcome at that stage, however, no study or research has been done to date to establish its success. We, however, note the submission made by the
committee that a process will be undertaken to establish its successes or failures. The NFP supports the Report tabled here today. Thank you.
Mr M G P LEKOTA: Thank you Deputy Speaker, the present set of the proposed legislation, in the phase of it may appear to assist the people but it is a serious blow to the poor and working people who already are suffering untold difficulties in the light of the huge haemorrhaging of public funds that have gone down the drain called the Zondo Commission.
What we are seeing is how much money of the people of South Africa has disappeared into nothing and the people that are left without places to go to, school to go, hospitals to go and so on.
The government is coming forward with a good story that it is now going to raise taxation so that the public can pay for the state-owned enterprises, SOEs, that have consumed so much of our money; for the Guptas and Bosasas, who have taken all the money; the poor must now pay more tax so that we cover up for the damage done.
We want to make the point simple. Unless we are given an explanation as to how we are going to recover these millions of rands, because the Minister of Finance has advised us not long ago that the money of the people has been finished. We are not in government but you are. You finished the money. [Interjections.] Therefore, please explain that. We are going to tell the people that you have wasted their money; you are chowing their money and now you are protecting your own corrupt collection of public funds. [Interjections.] We will not support this step. We will be there to tell the people. I thank you. [Applause.]
Dr D T GEORGE: Hon Deputy Speaker, in February, the Minister will tell us what government is going to do ...
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Alright. Alright. Order. Order.
Ms M S KHAWULA: Hhayi thula! [Shut up!]
Dr T D GEORGE: ... to avert the plunge of our economy over the fiscal cliff. That is the point at which all of
government revenue is spent on the public sector wage bill, interest repayments and social grants.
If government behaviour does not change now, there would be no money for service delivery. While other African economies growth surges ahead, ours does not, because government discourages entrepreneurial behaviour and is now amending our tax laws to make venture capital investments even more difficult.
A DA government will liberate our economy and entrepreneurs will thrive as they have done in South Africa’s fastest growing economy, the Western Cape. Our taxation laws should facilitate accelerated economic growth.
Although the Minister has said what is necessary to avert the fiscal cliff, nobody believes that he will take any action. The rating agencies did not believe him. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s immediately responded by downgrading our credit outlook to negative.
The only way that government can avoid the fiscal cliff, is to cut spending or increase revenue. There are a number of taxation amendments proposed and they still do not go far enough to generate the revenue that the Minister will need the numbers work. The growing deficit reflects that reality. What the proposed tax laws do, is continue to increase the tax burden on already hard at consumers whose only response can be to reduce their spending elsewhere and further shrink our economy.
Increased taxation on the tobacco industry, although it is welcomed, will not generate enough revenue neither will proposals to more heavily tax our vital motor industry.
A developmental state can work only if there is a capable and competent government, and we have neither. Instead of dabbling on the income side of our balanced sheet, government needs to focus on its spending.
The public sector wage bill is spiralled on the back of a failed cadre deployment fiasco that resulted in millionaire managers feasting on the people’s money, while service delivery dries up with no money to pay
salaries for frontline service providers such as educators, police and nurses. These are the basic building blocks of service delivery and they are broken. They are broken because the public enterprises model has failed and it cannot be fixed.
Billions in bailouts have been squandered on the zombie enterprises Eskom and SA Airways, SAA, whose executives pay themselves millions in bonuses, when they are hopelessly bankrupt and churn out one failed turnaround strategy after the other. A DA government would split Eskom, and allow independent power producers to inject much needed efficiency into the power grid. Our government has proven unable to deliver a reliable electricity supply and it should allow those who are able to do it, to get on with the job. A DA government would sell SAA, or, more likely, give it away to someone who will be willing to take it and pay back the people’s money that it never should have received to keep it artificially alive. [Applause.]
It would also be possible to increase social grants to the most vulnerable members of our society if public
finances were better managed. A DA government would do just that.
Sadly, Minister, your little Aloe is not going to survive, unless you do what you say you will do and it is very clear that you cannot cut spending. So, in February, we will see further tax increases that would crowd out more economic activity and further dumped economic growth.
We will not support the taxation amendments. Thank you. [Applause.]
IsiNdebele:
Nom G J SKOSANA: Ngiyathokoza mhlonitjhwa Sekela Somlomo. Ngilotjhisa woke amalunga ahloniphekileko weNdlu le, iintatanyiswa ezikhona kunye nesitjhaba soke seSewula Afrika.
English:
The impact of activities within the illicit economy is a real threat to the country and its impact is huge. The illicit economy ranges from the underground economy,
which operates outside the rules and regulations of the country, to organised crime. Sometimes, well respected companies partake in illicit activities too.
The United Nations estimates that money flowing to organised crime outstripped all the money that the developing countries could devote to long-term development. South Africa is losing a large portion of its gross domestic product, GDP, every year to the illicit economy. This has mainly been in the form of smuggling of tobacco products, counterfeit textiles, drug manufacturing and smuggling, illicit mining of gold and diamonds, ivory smuggling and the poaching of endangered species like abalone and rhino.
[Stjhaba sekhethu] My fellow nation, all of us as South Africans can stop the growth of the illicit economy if we can do the following: Firstly, refuse to buy counterfeit goods or contraband cigarettes, secondly, report poaching incidents to SA Revenue Service, Sars, the police and the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, and thirdly, report informal trade in precious stones such as diamonds to Sars and the police.
[Malunga ahloniphekileko] Hon members, the co-operation between financial institutions, public law-enforcement agencies and other government agencies is critical in dealing with illicit financial flows. The Financial Intelligent Centre which is housed in the National Treasury is a significant tool for monitoring the financial sector. However, it is limited for monitoring the formal financial sector. The financial sector has a high-level of compliance with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. The Act, and recent amendments, gives the Reserve Bank significant powers to monitor transactions and require banks to report suspicious transactions.
The legislative framework also creates room for greater co-operation among the three institutions namely: The SA Revenue Service, SA Reserve Bank, and the Financial Intelligence Centre in order to connect the dots and pick up patterns regarding money laundering, tax evasion or fraud.
[Mhlonitjhwa Sekela Somlomo] Hon Deputy Speaker, the 54th ANC Elective Conference resolved that and I quote, “Government must urgently crack down on tax avoidance and
illicit capital.” The ANC’s vision for South Africa is that of a society based on democratic values, social justice and human rights and a democratic and open society.
Our President, His Excellency Matamela Ramaphosa always emphasises the democratic values of transparency and accountability. Transparency and certainty are well- understood as characteristics of a good tax system. The Tax Administration Act sets out precise methods and standards for tax administration to be fair, transparent, equitable and predictable.
[Stjhaba sekhethu] My fellow nation, the National Development Plan outlines our long-term vision. A core element of this vision is a commitment to strong, sustained and inclusive economic growth to sharply reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality. We are building partnerships to find solutions to the developmental challenges faced by South Africa and the region. We are determined to support greater economic development within our townships and countryside communities. Our spending
on infrastructure aims to promote industrialisation across the country.
[Mhlonitjhwa Sekela Somlomo] Hon Deputy Speaker, I think in a nutshell as different political parties, we are agreeing on the challenges that are facing us as a country as far as issues of economy and fiscal challenges. We are all agreeing that [Siphefumula ngenceba] we are breathing through the wound. However, I hear other political parties speak as if we as the ANC we are not accepting the challenges that are facing us as a country. For instance, the hon Hill-Lewis comes here and says the ANC is protecting what he said are the millionaire managers in the public sector, whereas it was the Minister of Finance who came with the concept of the millionaire manager in the public sector. [Laughter.]
It is the Minister of Finance who came here during the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement and said we need to address that and we need to freeze the salaries of the so-called millionaire managers in the public sector.
However, today Hill-Lewis is bringing this thing here to say no the ANC is protecting those people. Where did we
protect them because even in the committee we agreed that we need to address that? That it is a challenge that needs to be addressed. [Applause.]
Equally the EFF, well they are raising the number of challenges that they are raising. The hon Mohlala - which are the challenges that we spoke about in the committee and all of us agreed that these are challenges that are facing us and need to be addressed. Nobody amongst us - all political parties we all agreed that these are the challenges that are facing us and they need to be addressed.
So, as members of this House what is important is that we must not spend 80% of our time speaking about our challenges, but we rather spend 20% indicating what are these challenges and spend 80% coming up with solutions as to how are we going to address those particular challenges. [Applause.]
So, the members sit with us in the committee and we all agree that we have these particular challenges, but now they come here and accuse us as if we as the ANC have
refused to address and attend to these particular challenges. For instance the issue of the illicit tobacco there are leaders of political parties in this House who are benefitting from illicit tobacco. We know that, but now they come here and pretend to be holy and say no there is an issue of illicit tobacco when we know that the leaders of some of these parties are benefitting from them.
So, members you must not do that. Let us join hands, work together and make sure that we address the challenges of that are facing us as a country. [Applause.]
IsiNdebele:
Mhlonitjhwa Sekela Somlomo, siyi ANC, siyawusekela umbiko lo. Ngithokoza khulu kwamambala. Inarha ayilale. [Iwahlo.]
The MINISTER OF FINANCE: Deputy Speaker, I would like to start off by thanking the Standing Committee on Finance for the work that they have done in going through what must be technically difficult matters and thank hon Maswanganyi for his leadership of the committee.
Hon members, in this House, it is always good to return to what the purpose of this discussion is all about after everything else has been said. The purpose here is to consider and adopt the rates and monitory amounts and amendment of Revenue Laws Bill to the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill and thirdly, the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill.
It has got nothing to do with what the leader of Cope was talking about. Under normal circumstances he should have been called to order that he was out of order. It might be the case that he has not read the documentation.
Nevertheless, our job is to help you understand what this is all about.
In the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, we indicted very clearly the difficulties that this country is going through and there is no need to repeat that here. The economic growth rate is disappointing and we know that. The question is what to do about it. We know that the expenditure continues to put a lot of pressure on the budgets. We know what we can afford and what we can’t afford and the question is what to do about it.
Our role as the leadership is to implement a set of policies and programmes to make sure that we get our act back in order. In this instance as you know, following on the Nugent Commission of Inquiry Report, we have now begun to restructure Sars to put it back to what it is supposed to be. We have appointed the new Sars Commissioner who is hard at work ensuring that we render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, all of us.
He has already begun to build the large business centre unit and also the Illicit Economy Unit and these are already beginning to bear fruits. I have indicated in this House before that we have already had some successes particularly at the border posts in stopping illegal cigarettes coming into the country, in particular, at the Beit Bridge border post and we have been successful in that regard.
I know that the tobacco industry is keen on reducing the tax burden that they carry but they know every year we have to make adjustments to the excise duties on tobacco. And I know, they have come with many explanations about how in their view the increase in excise duties has not
brought above more revenue but instead, it has lessened the revenue. I think it is a good discussion to have but, we have to continue to adjust the excise duties unfortunately. In short hon members, as I always say, I thank you very much for your contributions and I thank again the committee and the Chair for the leadership.
Thank you very much. Debate concluded.
RATES AND MONITORY AMOUNTS AND EMENDMENT OF REVENUE
(First Reading debate)
Bill read a first time (Economic Freedom Fighters and Freedom Front Plus dissenting)
TAXATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
(First Reading debate)
Bill read a first time (Democratic Alliance dissenting).
TAX ADMINSTRATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
(Second Reading debate)
Question put.
Division demanded.
Question agreed to.
RATES AND MONETARY AMOUNTS AND AMENDMENT OF REVENUE LAWS BILL
(Second Reading debate)
There was no debate.
Bill read a second time (Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus and Economic Freedom Fighters dissenting).
Agreed to.
TAXATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL
(Second Reading debate)
There was no debate.
Bill read a second time (Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters and Freedom Front Plus dissenting).
Agreed to.
CONSIDERATION OF RECOMMENDATION OF CANDIDATE FOR APPOINTMENT TO PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon James will introduce the report. Hon member, you better run. Minister, you are blocking traffic there. Hon James, next time you must be sited here. Yes, next time, okay? Go ahead.
Mr T H JAMES: Hon Deputy Speaker, it is noted, it won’t happen again. Hon Deputy Speaker, Parliament is obliged in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and the Public Service Act, to recommend the candidate for appointment by the President to serve as a commissioner for the National Public Service Commission.
Section 196 of the Constitution empowers Parliament through its committee to appoint five commissioners for the National Public Service Commission. Each commissioner should serve for the period of five years which is renewable. The committee received a request through the Speaker’s office to expedite filling of the vacancy for the commissioner’s post in the National Public Service Commission.
On 22 September 2019, the committee placed an advert in various newspapers calling on members of the public who are fit and proper persons to apply for the vacancy in the Public Service Commission. The portfolio committee appointed among its members, a subcommittee to run with the recruitment processes and report to the Principal once the recruitment processes are complete, and about
172 applicants responded to the advert.
Most of the candidates who responded had requisite skills and experience to contest for the position. Candidates were shortlisted based on their previous background, knowledge and their experience in various institutions.
Hon Deputy Speaker, the Portfolio Committee on Public
Service and Administration, resolved to recommend that the House approve the recommended candidate which is Ms Zanele Isabella Hlatshwayo for the appointment by the President to serve as the commissioner for the National Public Service Commission.
Hon Deputy Speaker, I therefore move for the adoption of this report. Shukran. Merci beaucoup. [Thank you very much.]
There was no debate.
Question put: That the House approves the nomination of Ms Zanele Isabella Hlatshwayo as commissioner for the Public Service Commission.
Declaration(s) of vote:
Dr L A SCHREIBER: Hon Deputy Speaker, as the hon member mentioned, the Constitution requires the Public Service Commissioners, PSCs, to be fit and proper persons who will ensure that the Public Service Commission, execute its duties in ways about independence and impartial. The Public Service Commission Act further stipulates that
Commissioners shall not hold office in any political party or political organisation.
A legal interpretation submitted to the subcommittee tasked with making this recommendation, further defined a fit and proper person as someone who demonstrates integrity, reliability and honesty. Based on these criteria, it is hardly possible to come up with a worse and more inappropriate person to appoint to the PSC than Zanele Hlatshwayo whom the ANC nominated to fill this crucial position.
She exemplifies everything that the Public Service Commissioner should not be. Hlatshwayo is unfit; Hlatshwayo is improper; Hlatshwayo is a biased ANC cadre; Hlatshwayo has a demonstrated track record of lack in integrity, reliability and honesty. She was Mayor of Msunduzi from 2007 to 2010, where she allegedly spent millions of rands in taxpayer’s funds on her pit projects, including an extravagant trip to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States.
After only three years, even the ANC have had enough and fired her. The Kwazulu-Natal Provincial Government was also forced to place Msunduzi under administration. Under beloved comrade Mayor, the financial status of the municipality rapidly deteriorated. There was pervasive noncompliance with statutory obligations, as well as a lack of oversight by the council.
Hon Deputy Speaker, does the person who destroyed Pietermaritzburg sound like a fit and proper person who has demonstrated integrity, reliability and honesty? No, and it is not ethically defensible. But it gets worse, Deputy Speaker, Hlatshwayo was reportedly number 33 on the ANC’s Kwazulu-Natal list to become a Member of Parliament. In a CV she boasts about being an active national working committee member of the ANC alliance, SA National Civic Organisation, SANCO.
During the interview process to fill the PSC vacancy, ANC members of the committee made a big show of asking the candidates, how do we build a merit-based public service? When I asked Hlatshwayo whether her appointment wouldn’t undermine any talk about building a merit-based and a
political public service, she arrogantly responded, I quote: “I will never stop being political.”
Hon Deputy Speaker, does this sound like someone who will be perceived by the public as independent and impartial? No, and it is not ethically defensible. Just as scandalous though, is the way in which the ANC actively undermine Kevin Malunga, the current Deputy Public Protector of the Republic who also applied for the PSC position. Malunga submitted a distinguished CV to the subcommittee, and he had by far the best interview.
Malunga is in fact fit and proper; Malunga is independent and impartial; Malunga has a demonstrated track record of integrity, reliability and honesty, which is precisely why the ANC, guided by its cadre deployment policy undermine Malunga at every turn. First, they tried to disqualify him on the basis that he was born in Zimbabwe, even though that he included a naturalisation certificate in his application, which showed that he became a South African citizen in 2010.
Next, the ANC said there was, I quote: “unwritten policy that Malunga’s gender disqualified him from the post.” When the DA objected to this flagrant xenophobia and sexism, the ANC tried to use a report from the State Security Agency, SSA, which supposedly implied that our current Deputy Public Protector may have a criminal record.
This was despite the fact that the SSA never even checked his finger prints. This entire process was a sham from the very start, in line with ANC’s policy of cadre deployment ... [Interjections.]
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon member, I am sorry, just one moment, please take your seat. Yes hon member?
Mr W T LETSIE: Hon Chair, the hon member is speaking about the ANC all the time. He’s forgetting that they’ve got a Mayor in Tshwane.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, that’s not a point of order. Proceed, hon member.
Dr L A SCHREIBER: I repeat, hon Deputy Speaker, this entire appointment process was a sham from the very start, in line with cadre deployment, it was designed to ensure that incompetent Zanele got the post, and the R1,5 million annual salary, and that a professional public servant, Malunga, was eliminated.
In the end, the DA’s unrelenting battle against this effort to capture the PSC ensured that Malunga was at least formally listed as an alternate candidate to become PSC commissioner. We have thereby kept an open door for President Cyril Ramaphosa to do the right thing. We call on him to reject the nomination of cadre Zanele, and to instead appoint Kevin Malunga to safeguard the independence and functionality of the Public Service Commission. Thank you [Applause.]
Ms C C S MOTSEPE: Deputy Speaker, Chairperson the Public Service Commission has a critical role to play in the efficient management of the ...
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: ... sorry hon member. Hon members please respect members on the podium. If you don’t
respect all of us here, wena [you] madam Khawula, hon member you are extremely out order. Go ahead hon member.
Ms C C S MOTSEPE: Chairperson the Public Service Commission has a critical role to play in the efficient management of the function of government. The commission has a constitutional duty to guard and promote the principle of the public administration, as set out in the section 195 of the Constitution. This includes a high standard of professional ethics in the public service and to ensure that public administration is development oriented amongst other things.
It is therefore important that the men and women who get appointed to the Public Service Commission are of a sound mind and are wired in, correctly; in terms of appreciating the role of the commission and can play a role in advancing our developmental interest. Ordinarily we would support the name of a capable woman to be appointed to the Public Service Commission, so despite the fact that the qualities of the position - her character is not what the Public Service Commission need at the moment. She left the job as a mayor of Msunduzi
Local Municipality under a cloud of corruption and the municipality was put under administration under her watch.
We would therefore not support people with a tainted past to come and oversee the work of the public service. The public service is littered with incidences of corruption, of abuse of power by senior managers, of harassment of those who oppose rogue leadership elements. The commission has been silent on this issue for a very long time. We would therefore want a commission that has teeth to bite; we do not support the recommendation. Thank you.
Ms R M M LESOMA: Hon Deputy Speaker...
IsiZulu:
... angisho nje ngizidlulela ukuthi kuyamangalisa kuyadumaza lokhu okushiwo umhlonishwa udade oqeda ukusuka la ngoba ekomidini uvumelene nathi kodwa asikho lapho. [Ubuwelewele.]
English:
The advancement of the developmental state model requires amongst other things: Strengthening the public service, this means professionalising the public service for service delivery, build ethical public leadership and fight corruption. It must be independent and impartial and exercise its powers and perform its functions without fear, favour and prejudice, in the interest of the maintenance of effective efficient public service and high standard of ethics in the public service, as the Constitution provides.
The ANC, supports the recommendation of the Portfolio Committee of Public Service Commission, Public Service and Administration, that Ms Zanele Isabel Hlatshwayo in terms of section 196 (8a) of the Constitution be recommended for the hon President to be appointed to serve in the Public Service Commission. May I, just say the important processes that we followed, which all us by the way hon members, we agreed on and was fit and proper, which were before the short-listing, and the understanding of the public service, what does it mean and we agreed.
Secondly, the criteria of short-listing in terms of the Chapter 10 of the Constitution, what is required, we all agreed, which was before the short-listing. The nine candidates that were short-listed, all of us we agreed on that. That means all the candidates that were short- listed were fit and proper. Thirdly was the issue – we did receive preliminary vetting results, which we were waiting for the final one, which the President will receive in due course, after this process. I must say its quiet disturbing and alarming what hon members behaving as if we didn’t look at those things, we didn’t agree on that.
Parliament and the ANC as the ruling and leading party in government, we reaffirm here and today our commitment, work, support, empower and make sure that all the recommendations that are put before the committee and Parliament by the Public Service Commission, is strengthening our oversight role as the public representatives. Let us take this opportunity so that we don’t waste time, because I have alluded on three major processes which are critical that we followed and also we are not dealing with a person, but I must say...
... kungaba yichilo kokuthi ... umangabe umuntu ... kuleya ndawo simthathe sengathi usebenza yedwana, sisebenza sisonke, nanikuphi nina? Mangisho-ke ... sibonge kubantu ebesibambisene nabo kuzo zonke izinhlangano
Nk M S KHAWULA: Awusibizanga thina! [Ubuwelewele.]
English:
Ms R M M LESOMA: Hon Deputy Speaker, let us take this opportunity ...
IsiZulu:
... kubo bonke ababekwe ... nababengenele ukuthi babe kule komishani. I-ANC iyaseka. Siyabonga. [Ihlombe.]
IsiZulu:
Nk M KHAWULA: Sekela Somlomo, nginephuzu lokukhalima okuphambukayo. Uxolo, Sekela Somlomo.
English:
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: What’s your point of order?
Ms M KHAWULA: Cha, Sekela Somlomo, i-ANC ibanga umsindo manje asisezwa lutho lana kanti ...
English:
... we are coming to hear everything here.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: yah, hon member let’s proceed. Hon members, in terms of section 196 of the Constitution, the persons nominated for appointment to serve on the Public Service Commission, must be approved by a majority of members of the Assembly, although a division has not been demanded, members are required to record their support for the recommendation. The bells will be rung for five minutes.
Hon members, we do wish to remind you that you may only vote from your allocated seat, when requested to do so, you must simply indicate your vote by pressing the appropriate button below yes, no or abstain sides. If you inadvertently press the wrong button, you may thereafter press the correct button. The last button pressed will be recorded as your vote, when the voting session is closed
by the Chair. Order, the question before the House, is that House approves the nomination of Ms Zanele Isabella Hlatshwayo for appointment to serve on the Public Service Commission, are all members... hon members just be in order, no, no be in order. We are in the middle of a decision here, so don’t raise anything. Hon members, voting will now commence. Those in favour of the nomination, should press the “yes” button, those against will press the “no”, those wishing to abstain, press the “abstain” button. Have you all voted?
Mr X NGWEZI: Deputy Speaker, the member there, Mr Nxumalo can’t vote he has a problem with a machine.
THE DEPUTY SPEAKER: Umshini wakhe [his device], you don’t have say that, just raise your hands and point him. The people here will know that.
Mr X NGWEZI: Yah, he is voting no.
THE DUPUTY SPEAKER: You don’t have to tell us, it’s done on the button and if you talk, you come here, if want to. The voting session is closed.
There was no debate.
Question put: That the House approves the nomination of Ms Zanele Isabella Hlatshwayo as commissioner for the Public Service Commission.
The majority required in terms of section 196(8)(a)(ii) of the Constitution, 1996 (Act No 108 of 1996) not being obtained, decision of question postponed.
DEBATE IN TERMS OF RULE 130: THE STRIKE ACTION AT SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS AND THE IMPLICATIONS THEREOF ON THE ECONOMY
Inkosi E M BUTHELEZI: I rise to this podium, Deputy Speaker, with deep disappointment that a few weeks ago we were celebrating the victory and possibilities of our country which the Springboks reminded all of us. They flied our flag the highest — yet our iron bird of the skies - which should be parading our flag at 30 000 feet high couldn’t take off the ground.
However, Deputy Speaker, the IFF in calling for this debate of urgent national importance - was not to call a session of this assembly to simply grandstand and further bemoan the constant failures of a once successful airline.
We called for this debate, because like I said, we were reminded that together we can do better. That is what our policy as the IFP says and we are constructive. We also called this debate because South Africa warrants it.
Our people who elected us here warrant from us the actions required and robust debates to take place in this House so that we bring them the solutions that the government can implement.
Many have extensively diagnosed the rot and the cause for the failures; and more recently, some of the corrupt cronies have been allegedly been fingered in state capture.
To summarise the rot - it is the greed, corruption, flagrant abuse of public funds, the deliberate disregard
for our countries legislation, incompetent cadre deployment and compromised and unethical leadership.
In terms of those who were fingered in the state capture, we cannot pronounce ourselves on that as yet, but we can certainly say that the government has let us down and have spectacularly failed to bring the change to the SA Air Ways, SAA.
The IFP has long held that SAA’s reliance on state resources should be limited and phased out into a more sustainable cost model through a public-private partnership agreement in order for it to become globally competitive, drive down costs and to restore service excellence.
Already South Africans and in particular SAA workers are frustrated, their constant frustration will turn into anger.
We have seen what fire and fury feels like when flights were grounded and when operations came to a standstill. You must never, hon Deputy Speaker, deceive ourselves and
think that the fact that workers have gone back to work that is the end of SAA’s problem.
This moment even though it may seem all doom and gloom, it is perhaps exactly the breaking point we needed. It is the Rubicon moment of the SAA.
This moment certainly presents us with an opportunity to knuckle down and present solutions and save our airline carrying our country’s flag from flying into flames.
Hon Deputy Speaker, let us be reasonable here. We know that change does not come or does not happen by the click of a finger.
The SAA's mandate and how it benefits each and every South African and how it benefits our economy and how it makes us the gateway to Africa again is what we need to be debating about at this House today.
South Africans don’t appreciate the fighting and the noise. They want solutions and plans to be met with
political will, justice and strong actions over tough talk and many barks with no bite.
Just as we rose in saying we are stronger when united - let us use this moment, SAA’s Rubicon moment to stand together in implementing a strong plan which will see the SAA take off.
We are looking forward to hearing constructive members engaging on this matter and ...
IsiZulu:
... ngiyakholelwa, Sekela Somlomo, ukuthi njengoba leNdlu namhlanje iphikisene nokuqashwa komunye ongafanele ukuba ubengaqashwa nomholi onogcobho ekutheni ahole i- public ... umnyango lo njengokhomishana ...
English:
... will do the same in addressing all our matters that are confronting us because now is time ...
IsiZulu:
... la kufanele ukuba sonke sibumbane siqhamuke nezixazululo kuzo zonke izinkinga esibhekene nazo njengezwe. Iqiniso lithi, izwe lethu selidinga ubuholi obuqotho. Kudinga ukuthi amaphutha esiwenzile ngaso sonke isikhathi esingemuva ikakhulukazi eqenjini elibusayo, siyibuke, sikwazi ukuwalungisa ...
English:
... for the sake of our country and for the sake of future generations ...
IsiZulu:
... esikholwa ukuthi sonke lapha sizimele ngoba asikwazi ukusebenzisa izimali zabantu ngezikhathi zonke ukuze zikhiphe otakwini u-SA-Airways, SAA, nazo zonke izinkampani eziphethwe uHulumeni ngaphandle kokuthi enze lokhu okufanele afeze imigomo nemiyalo yazo.
Siyacela-ke ukuthi iNdlu yonke ibambe iqhaza kule nkulumo mpikiswano ukuze sifikelele ezixazululweni, lezo ezidingwa yizwe futhi siyakholwa ukuthi abantu bakithi uma betatha isinyathelo sokuya emgwaqeni yingoba kunesikhathi eside izimfuno zabo singalekelelwa futhi
zingezwakali zingalalelwa abaphethe. Ngeke sikuvumele ukuthi inkohlakalo kulabo abaphethe idle lubi bese okufanele bafele lokho ekugcineni kosuku kube ngabasebenzi. Siyabonga kakhulu-ke, Sekela Somlomo, ohloniphekileyo.
English:
Thank you. [Applause.]
Mr K E MAGAXA: On 6 June this year, President Ramaphosa met with chief executives of over 20 key state-owned companies, SOCs, at the Union Buildings to discuss the contribution they can make to economic revitalisation and social development.
The President acknowledged that several entities were facing severe financial and operational challenges that pose great risks to the South African economy. In the end, the meeting recognised that SOCs have considerable resources and capabilities that if better co-ordinated and managed, could have a far greater impact on economic growth and job creation.
However, the challenges they face range from inadequate capitalisation and poor governance to outdated legislation and political interference. The ANC government is committed to work with the leadership of these SOCs to urgently address these difficulties. The decisions of the meeting with the President have formed part of the Presidential SOCs Council established to provide political oversight and strategic management to reposition and revitalise the SOCs as catalysts to economic growth and development.
While SAA found itself in dire straits on the brink of collapse needing cash injection of R2 billion to keep its operations going, the two majority unions served the company with a strike notice. It is worth noting that five other unions in the company did not strike. By the way, the strike had nothing to do with the wage increase but more to do with populist politics and demagoguery by both Solidarity and Numsa which are two sides of the same coin with an agenda to destabilise our economy and the state under the ANC government.
The call by the DA to privatise SAA and other SOCs is not a panacea to all their problems. In fact, that dogmatic call forgets the inconvenient fact that those who corrupt public sector employees and public representatives are business people who want to get an unfair advantage on their competitors. However, while the ANC supports the efforts by the government to sustain strategic SOCs through appropriating money from the National Revenue Fund, a number of moral questions do arise.
Firstly, should public funds be used to continuously sustain an airline which is used primarily by the bourgeois class and middle strata? Should not this money be channelled to fund the transport sectors used by the overwhelming majority of our people, trains, buses and taxis? The answer for me is pretty simple a big no.
We may not always agree with the Finance Minister, but the recapitalisation of these SOCs that continue to have bloated executives with layers of managers with executive perks; managers who award worth dodgy contracts is morally very difficult to justify. The government must seek to find partners with aviation expertise to buy
equity in SAA so that it can continue to fly the South African flag. We cannot continue subsidising the rich.
While we respect the ideological purity of some who claim they are opposed to strategic equity partnerships as a matter of principle; we know that some of them, such as the VBS cabal, advocate reckless appropriation of public funds to keep SAA and the other SOCs purely out of self- interest. They know it is easier for them to loot the public sector companies than entities that are part- privately owned, such as Telkom.
We know they will launch personalised attacks through their Twitter fake accounts against the Minister of Public Enterprises because to them, stealing and laundering the savings of elderly rural gogos to fund their lavish lifestyles is okay. [Applause.] With our mothers and grandmothers money, they have bought luxury cars and houses among the rich and well fed – the very same white capital they claim to hate so much.
The government needs to urgently better definition of the respective mandates of state-owned companies and align
policy to more effectively support their achievement. The legal and regulatory environment within which SOCs operate, which are often ill-suited to the specific needs of entities and constrain innovation must be updated. The exercise by government shareholder representatives of their oversight responsibility and inconsistency in the appointment of boards must be improved.
There have been many turnaround strategies at SAA that have met with limited success due to factors such as mismanagement, state capture, incorrect fleet configuration, discontinuity and disruptions at leadership levels and the erosion of skills.
The ANC supports the recommendations in various forensic reports that are being implemented, with some being handed to the Hawks for criminal investigation, and also at the National Prosecuting Authority for evaluation of evidence. As a result of this work, some employees suspected of involvement in wrongdoing have been subjected to internal disciplinary hearings.
As expressed in King Code IV, there is a greater need now, more than ever for leaders who carry the values of ethical leadership and effective leadership and those dialectically reinforcing one another.
In conclusion Deputy Speaker, as the ANC, we want to express our confidence in the Minister of Public Enterprises, Comrade Pravin Gordhan. The unwarranted attacks, even from within our movement, should not deter him from carrying out the responsibilities of his office by the President and the majority of the people of South Africa.
The ANC condemns in the strongest possible terms the ethnic chauvinism that rears its head from time to time. The ANC affirms its nonracial, nonsexist character which was built with sweat and blood by generations of outstanding leaders of our movement such as OR Tambo, Albert Luthuli, Yusuf Dadoo, Ruth First, Sophie de Bruyn, Bertha Gxowa, Joe Slovo, and many others. Nonracialism is a foundational principle of the ANC and the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
There is no transformation policy in the ANC that says white South Africans must never be appointed to senior public sector positions. We are the ANC of Freedom Charter, which says that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. I thank you. [Applause.]
IsiZulu:
Sihlalo, ngiyabonga kakhulu ukuthi usangibona namanje, kade ngagcina ukusebenza nawe.
English:
Mr R A LEES: Madam House Chairperson, since 1994, the South African taxpayer has paid bailouts that amounts to R57 billion to the SA Airways. The SA Airways is bankrupt. The organisation is riddled with cadre deployment, corruption and entitlement amongst the unions representing the 11 000 employees.
Who in their right mind demands any salary increase at all from a bankrupt employer, let alone an 8% increase way above inflation? The irony is that they have been granted such an obscene increase by giving away other people’s money.
Just this year alone, R5,5 billion in bailouts has already been paid to SA Airways all of it having to be borrowed at huge expense to future generations. Despite section 55 of the Public Finance Management Act, PFMA, that requires that the accounting authority submit financial statements within five months of the end of the financial year, the SA Airways board has not tabled annual financial statements for the past two financial years and is rapidly heading towards the end of the third financial year.
The SA Airways board of directors are simply flouting the law. They seem to think they are above the law and should be lauded for ignoring it. Section 22 of the Companies Act prohibits any company from continuing to trade when it is unable to pay its debts when they become due. This was made patently clear last week when Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises, and the SA Airways board warned employees that SA Airways might not be able to pay salaries at the end of November.
There can be no doubt that the SA Airways directors are allowing SA Airways to trade recklessly and are acting in
violation of section 22 of the Companies Act. It is not only Dudu Myeni, the corporate warlord, who should be declared a delinquent director. It is unconscionable that the current directors allow SA Airways to continue to trade recklessly whilst they hold out a begging bowl for ever more bailouts.
The SA Airways board treats Parliament with complete disdain. Fourteen days ago, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Scopa, instructed SA Airways directors, who agreed, to provide the Scopa with certain documentation within 48 hours. The SA Airways is due to appear before the Scopa again on Wednesday, tomorrow, and yet none of the documents requested from SA Airways have yet been provided.
The board director who glibly quotes an unsupported figure of more than R40 billion that it would cost to liquidate the SA Airways is clearly attempting to frighten Parliament into agreeing to more bailouts. South Africans from all walks of life whether very poor or very rich have had enough of massive bailouts for SA Airways and it is only the ANC and the trade unions that
stubbornly persist with maintaining the SA Airways as a state-owned entity.
The SA Airways must be put into business rescue, the government guaranteed debt must be accommodated and SA Airways must be sold for whatever the best offer received from Branson, Emirates Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines or any other buyer. That is bottom line, Madam House Chairperson.
Mr M N PAULSEN: Thank you House Chairperson, the industrial action by the workers at the SA Airways is an indictment on the poor management of not only the SAA but the general state of state-owned enterprises.
The poor management is not accidental but it is part of a broader and co-ordinated agenda and machinations by the clique now in power; only in power as extensions of the greed and the desires of the finance years in the private sector. The objective is to deliberately run down the critical and strategic state-owned entities so that in the end they are privatised and handed over on a silver platter to the friends of those in power. This is a
classic state capture by the present regime under President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The workers are made to be casualties of this process. It is the workers who must bear the brunt of the greed of the private sector and woeful incompetence and the brazen corruption of the ANC politicians and their appointees at the state-owned enterprises.
The industrial action by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, Numsa, and the SA Cabin Crew Association, SACCA, was a response to these evil machinations. It was a rejection of the attempts to make workers casualties of a battle that they are not part of. It was an affirmation of the central role workers play not only at the SAA but in the economy in general.
The failure of the SAA must be put squarely on the shoulders of Cyril Ramaphosa and Gordhan’s government, who have failed to stabilise the state-owned entities. They have been presiding over the government for two years now. The SAA, like other state-owned entities such as Eskom, Denel and others are continuing to deteriorate.
There is no comprehensive plan by the Ramaphosa – Gordhan coalition to save state-owned institutions and the broader economic conditions of high unemployment.
President Ramaphosa keeps misleading the country with investment conferences that promises billions of rands that no one feels on the ground. If there are billions in investment, why is the SAA planning to retrench workers?
It is therefore correct for workers to unite and fight against retrenchments. The failure of the SAA cannot be blamed on ordinary workers. They cannot be the ones who take responsibility by losing jobs which supports them, their families and their relatives. They are the ones who go to work everyday and relentlessly give up their time, sweat and blood for the SAA that has no regard for workers.
We cannot have an economy that keeps on shedding jobs on the pretext of prudent management of entities. We cannot have state-owned entities that are at the forefront of endangering the livelihoods of thousands of South Africans all because there is a bigger project of handing
over the sovereignty of the country to white monopoly capital.
The workers at the SAA must not lose their jobs. The workers at the SAA must be paid a living and respectable wage. The workers at the SAA must not fall victim to the greed of leeches in big business, which use their appointees in government to destroy state-owned entities. What is needed is a stronger government intervention at the SAA to rescue the airline from collapse.
The SAA should have its capacity developed to such an extent that they can dominate domestic travel routes together with other low-cost airlines. It should not be the case that we have airlines such as British Airways operating domestically in South Africa.
The SAA must own its aircrafts, train its own pilots, develop the capacity of its own engineers and expand its reach into the country and within the continent. The opportunities for growth and sustainability of the airline are massive. We only need to remove the political interference by the demigod of this administration, who
goes around masquerading as the messiah of the state- owned companies but who actually saw the seeds for their destruction while he was the Minister of finance. Pravin must fall. Thank you very much.
Mr W W WESSELS: Hon House Chair, it is very clear that the hon Paulsen does not care about the livelihoods of the 11 000 workers at SAA. It is very clear that his party and most trade unions in South Africa are only interested in their own ideology and in their own interests and not in the long-term livelihoods of workers in South Africa.
Let me explain it. A salary with no increase is better than no salary. What is currently going to happen to those 11 000 employees is that they are going to be unemployed. That is what you want and that is what trade unions in South Africa want, because trade unions are only interested in short-term gains.
Trade unions are currently the tail that is wagging the head of government. It is trade unions that are preventing government from doing what is necessary to be
done to save our economy and to install the actual solutions that are necessary, especially in terms of our state-owned entities.
What are trade unions doing? If we look at Eskom, we see that a competent CEO was appointed - Phakamani Hadebe. He identified the crisis as an unsustainable and inflated wage bill. He proposed wage freeze and what happened? The trade union and the ANC member referred to the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Numsa, as irresponsible because they don’t form part of the tripartite alliance, but your own tripartite alliance trade unions that form part of your federation do exactly the same. The National Union of Mineworkers, Num, did exactly the same with Eskom - threatened with industrial action and stopped the plans of the new CEO and he resigned.
The same happened with the CEO of SAA. Vuyani Jerana also had the correct plans in place but was forced to resign. He saw that he was not going to be able to turn around the ship, because of trade unions.
We must take a stance and this government must take a stance. You have to take a stance against your own tripartite alliance. You have to say, enough is enough. You have to say that we cannot afford wage increases.
This 5,9% wage increase is unsustainable. The back pay until April 2019 cannot be afforded. At this stage, SAA cannot even pay their salaries on time this month. How will they be able to pay this money?
We say that enough is enough! Down with bailouts! Stop the bailouts. At this point in time, money that should go too improving our infrastructure and should go to providing services to the poor is going to SAA and to failed state-owned enterprises. We cannot allow more bailouts. We are in a fiscal unsustainable position and government knows this. The President knows this. The Minister of Finance knows this, but his hands are tied, because of the power of trade unions.
Afrikaans:
Genoeg is genoeg! Daar moet standpunt ingeneem word. Hierdie ieologie kan nie wen nie. Die EFF en hulle maatjies kan nie wen nie. [Tussenwerpsels.] Hulle gaan
die land totaal en al vernietig met hulle ideologiese kortsugtige gesprekke en dieselfde met die ANC, wat nie standpunt teen die vakbonde wil inneem nie. Vyf-punt-nege persent kan nie ’n verhoging bo inflasie wees vir ’n instelling wat dit nie kan bekostig nie en vir ’n maatskappy wat insolvent is en wat ’n verlies van
R500 miljoen ’n maand maak nie. Dit is onvolhoubaar. Genoeg is genoeg! [Tyd verstreke.]
Mr S N SWART: House Chairperson, the ACDP thanks the IFP for calling for this much-needed debate. As we know, state-owned companies pose the greatest threat to the South African economy, with many repeatedly requesting guaranteed lines of credit from government. Clearly, this cannot continue.
The interest-bearing debt of 10 of the largest SOCs has grown from R266,7 billion to R738,3 billion in 2017-18 – a staggering increase of 177% over eight years.
While Eskom remains the most serious risk to the fiscus, over the past 13 years, SAA has incurred over R28 billion in cumulative losses. We know that the airline is
bankrupt, and in its current configuration, unlikely to ever generate sufficient cash flow to sustain its operations. Then we had a strike.
The workers, Numsa’s own members are all poorer after the strike. After costing the workers eight days in unpaid wages in a strike that should never have occurred, Numsa accepted the 5,9% that was offered before the strike. In other words, the union has cost its members a quarter of their monthly salary for no additional financial gain.
That is disgraceful!
The implementation of the increase is also dependent on the Minister of Finance’s additional cash bailout. That takes the total cash bailouts to R59 billion over the past 23 years, while running at a cumulative loss.
Clearly, this is unacceptable.
Government has an understandable reluctance to provide further bailouts to SAA for working capital to fund its daily operations. That is not capital investment; that is running costs. The very likely outcome of the settlement is that it will be a temporary respite.
There comes a point in every struggling company’s life when shareholders must decide where to draw the line and how best to cut their losses. The government has never quite made that decision on SAA. That time is now.
Instead, Treasury grudgingly gives and the department comes time and time again for bailouts. Clearly, the time for the hard decisions is now.
Business rescue is required. A possible private equity partner is there and it is required. We need to invite those equity partners before there is nothing left to say.
So, from the ACDP’s perspective, let us cut our losses and let us see what we can save. It is like an aunty at your Christmas party. She is there, but how do you continue when she misbehaves? You have to deal with it once and for all, once and for all. Hard decisions are required. Now is the time for those decisions. I thank you.
Mr N L S KWANKWA: House Chairperson and hon members, some in authority would have us believe that operations at SAA
are going like clockwork after an eight-day strike, which ended with a deal between management and unions last week Friday.
However, as you are aware, even the 5,9% increase given to the workers can only be implemented if and when SAA secures funds for working capital from the state. As usual, SAA hopes to receive this amount - another cash bailout from government - to fund its working capital needs. This is from an SOE that last published its annual financial report in 2017. To make matters worse, even in that financial report, SAA showed a loss of about
R5,56 billion for the year.
Through these endless bailouts to SOEs like SAA, this uncaring government diverts resources that should be used to build houses for gogo Dlamini and tatu Jwarha from Site C and Site B in Khayelitsha. They use funds that should be used to address water challenges in Idutywa, Gcuwa, eRhini, money that should be channeled to the school infrastructure grant for the building of schools and the eradication of mud schools in rural provinces
like Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, among others.
Given the amount of bailouts SAA has received from the taxpayers over the past two decades and the fact that South Africa itself is heavily in debt, it should be clear to all and sundry that the fiscus can no longer afford to extend further bailouts to the national carrier. The fact is having SAA 100% government owned is not sustainable under the current circumstances.
In addition, the airline has deep-seated governance challenges, which predate the likes of Dudu Myeni. Fellow South Africans, the fact of the matter is that SAA, like most SOEs, is a major drain on the fiscus.
For these and many other reasons that we cannot state here, due to time constraints, the UDM believes the time has come for government to find a strategic private equity partner for SAA. This must however be done in a manner that ensures that government has controlling interest, which will allow it to veto or overturn decisions. For examples in this regard, one has to look
no further than our fellow Brics partners, China and Russia.
As we undertake this important step, it is important for us as a country to ensure that the private partners bring their own money, skills and expertise to the table, in order to guard against using the same taxpayers’ money to fund their stake at SAA, which, in our view, would be another sophisticated form of a bailout.
IsiXhosa:
Yiyani phaya kwiNkozo yoPhapho yase-Ethopia bafuna ukuninceda, bathi yizani sizakuninceda. Yekani ukuphakama kodwa nixakiwe yile nkonzo yophapho. La masela.
Mr S N AUGUST: Hon House Chairperson, we cannot afford to continue to bail out our failing state-owned enterprises, SOEs. South African Airways, SAA, is in trouble and we all know it. Debt is too deep; revenue growth is too weak, and procurement problems are costing us too much.
There is simply too many costs and not enough income. All households in South Africa know this problem.
We cannot keep adding to South African costs by raising VAT and fuel levies to pay for corruption and mismanagement. The rot must stop. The tens of billions sunk in to SAA have not yielded a profit or dividends for our country. Like Eskom, SAA has weakened the country by sucking up valuable funds we should have been using for service delivery, housing, and investment in growth- enabling infrastructure.
Good believes that SOE’s must be financially independent from government and we will support anyone who can turn around the ailing SAA and stop the need for bailouts.
State-owned enterprises must be run efficiently and professionally so that they yield dividends. We need those dividends and profits to be used for the benefit of all South Africans so that we can invest more for South Africa. We need more budget to ensure that social grants keep pace with inflation. We need more investment in critical social services like education, policing and health care. We need more investment in infrastructure that stimulates growth and job creation.
The argument that state-owned entities in this developmental state serve interests beyond profitability cannot be used to justify destroying the economy. Good is pleased that management and the unions have reached an agreement to work together. It is time to fix SAA so that we can fix South Africa.
Sepedi:
Moh C M PHIRI: Modulasetulo wa Ngwako le Ntlo yeo e hlomphegago ...
English:
... the strike by members of two unions at SA Airways has brought to the national attention the grave challenges faced by SA Airways. The debate on the state- owned companies tends to polarise opinions in our country. Unfortunately, the real issues tend to be lost in the partisan squabble about state-owned enterprises versus private ownership, as if the two forms of ownership cannot coexist.
The ANC traditionally takes a rational approach that advances the interests of a country as a whole, informed
by the balance of evidence. State-owned companies play an important role in the country’s economic growth as they provide strategic infrastructure and service delivery instruments. The National Development Plan, which is supported by the majority of parties in this House, emphasises the centrality of strong state institutions as key building blocks for a developmental state. For this reason, it is incumbent upon the government of the ANC to work tirelessly towards finding amicable solutions to the challenges faced by SAA and other SOEs.
A narrative has developed in South Africa that SOEs are mere feeding pans for greed and corruption. Those who promote this narrative forget to mention that these companies offer opportunities to thousands of young, poor and working class South Africans to receive training and experience in careers that the private sector does not ordinarily provide.
South African Airways for instance is currently offering airport operations and cabin crew training programmes to the general public. Young people, even from rural areas can apply and benefit from these accredited training
opportunities. State-owned enterprises such as Transnet have trained thousands of artisans, technicians and graduates in a variety of fields, thus contributing to much-needed skills and employment creation.
The ANC is committed to actively promoting a culture of integrity in our SOEs. These companies must embody high levels of professional ethics as part of a renewed public administration that is developmental, accountable and transparent. We condemn wasteful expenditure and corruption in all its manifestations at SAA. We support cost-cutting measures the company is pursuing and the recovery of misappropriated funds and stolen property.
The ANC must redouble efforts to ensure that all SOEs have boards and executives that are broadly representative of the demographics of the South African population. We want to see many more women as chairpersons and CEOs, especially of large companies like SAA, Eskom and Transnet. We must not lose sight of the fact that the business environment for airlines has deteriorated with the rising fuel prices and a substantial weakening of world trade.
According to industry experts, this year will be the 10th consecutive year in negative for the airline industry. We disagree with those who claim that the SOEs always fail. In our own country we have a number of companies in which the state holds a significant share such as the Airports Company of South Africa and Telkom that compete successfully in their sectors. On our continent, we are inspired by Ethiopian Airlines, a wholly state-owned company that has grown to become one of the most respected players in the aviation industry, with a footprint across Africa.
In conclusion, I want to finish by making an economic case why we need to turn around SAA for the good of our country. South African Airways - the South African national flag carrier, has a specific and important role to play as an enabler for tourism and a driver of economic growth through trade. The movement of people and goods by air is growing in our country and in the continent.
Tourism remains an important catalyst for growth in South Africa. It supports one in every 12 jobs. South African
Airways is a four-star rated domestic, continental and intercontinental airline. Mango is one of the most successful low-cost carrier on the continent. SA Airways Technical is the leading federal aviation administration, FAA-accredited maintenance facility in Africa. With the African Continental Free Trade Area treaty that has been ratified by the majority of African states, there are wonderful opportunities for South African state-owned companies to expand their operations on the continent and use their expertise to enter into partnership with African companies.
With a shared vision, we believe that SAA can develop a long-term strategic plan, driven by individuals who put the interests of the company and the people of South Africa before their own. South African Airways carries the name and flag of the nation and should once again be held in high regard as a symbol of national pride. I thank you. [Interjections.] [Applause.]
Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Thank you, hon House Chair. I think what we are doing here we are forgetting what is the root cause of why SA Airways and other state-owned entities
are in the position that it is today ... please do. First of all, let me highlight some of the challenges; SA Airways technical they contravened all the regulations, they disposed of our assets which we bought at R800 000 each and they sold them at R240 000 and the company that bought them then entered into a joint venture and secured a contract in South Africa for R1,46 billion. And, we are expecting SA Airways to succeed?
Coleman Andrews takes your entire fleet after being paid over R200 million for the two and a half-year contract. That is what his salary was. He sells his entire fleet and decides to go and lease the fleet again. So, you are still telling me that SA Airways can be successful. You get a R1,6 billion bail-out but you give R326 million in sponsorships. Does that make sense?
The solution is not in the sale or the privatisation, it is to deal with the root causes of why SA Airways is ... Yes, indeed, I think a business rescue with independent administration and supervision is the route to go if we want to save the SA Airways. I am not saying that SA Airways should remain solely a state-owned entity because
there is ... I cannot understand that with the challenges that the SA Airways faces currently – bankrupt as it is – you have the unions demanding an 8% increase. The question that I asked was: had there been a private industry, will they be demanding 8% or not?
Now, we have a call centre that we are operating from ... [Inaudible.] ... we have evergreen contracts that continue, we have water – the very same water which cost about R2 – which we are paying exorbitant amounts for, and very little or nothing ... I am told that our staff complement of almost 11 000 is three or four times more than any other airline for the number of flights that you have. The question is, if we will continue in this route surely we cannot expect it to be successful. As government we know these problems exist and the question is; what are we doing about it? If we don’t have power and the control to be able to deal with it, put it under business rescue, let there be independent administration, give a guarantee ... [Inaudible.] ... [Time expired.] ... travellers that they won’t lose their money otherwise they uncertainty ... [Inaudible.] ... SA Airways.
Sepedi:
Mna W M MADISHA: Go bohloko banna.
English:
A few years ago SA Airways retrenched a thousand workers. Today we are talking about almost another 1000. The question is; what will actually happen to the lives of these people? Are they able to get jobs anywhere etc?
Unemployment and hunger in that million will grow. That is a very serious problem, which says that South Africa has come to the end of the road. There is no money in the kitty to bailout most of the state-owned enterprises, SOEs, any further of course. This is the end of the road I want to say.
The handing over of control must be the last resort to keep SA Airways in business. It must be the last resort. For the government to get a share of the profit - of all the guarantees given to SA Airways and freed of all obligations to hand out perpetual bailouts - then we need to take that as the only option. Here, I am therefore talking about going to a business and saying that, take
49 and I remain with 51. We then can be able to move
forward and share. At the same time we will save the lives of the people.
The SA Airways will still display national identity. As for jobs, the government must see to what extend attrition can work. Thereafter, a strategy must be in place to preserve as many jobs as possible. Finally, for those who will be retrenched, the government must help with the retraining and reskilling. Australia, the United Kingdom, UK, Germany amongst many others have all put the running of their airlines in the hands of business people and South Africa cannot retain SA Airways as a vanity project, hence I am saying we need to look at a ... say half-half so that we then can be able to survive.
However, the working people there have to be saved. It must be a proper business and run as a business. If not, the government must indicate where the money will come from to bail it out every few months. [Time expired.] From what everyone knows the government hasn’t got any money but then you have to supply ...
Sepedi:
MODULASETULO WA NGWAKO (Moh M G Boroto): Re a leboga.
Xitsonga:
Nkul W M MADISHA: Hi swona.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G BOROTO): Hon Madisha, no,
you can’t do that. This is a sacred place. The Mace is in the House! Okay ...
IsiZulu:
Ngiyakuxolela bazakutshela ukuthi wenzeni uma ungangizwa.
Sepedi:
Ba tla go botša, mokgalabje. [Tšhwahlelo.] Agaa, ke go tshwaretše, mokgalabje. Agaa!
Mr M HLENGWA: Thank you very much, hon House Chairperson. I would like to repeat what the hon Inkosi E M Buthelezi said when he opened this debate. In diagnosing the problem he said many have extensively diagnosed the rot and root causes for the failure. More recently some of the corrupt cronies have allegedly been fingered in the state capture. To summarise the rot; it is greed,
corruption, ... [Inaudible.] ... abuse of public funds, the deliberate disregard for our country’s legislation, incompetent cadre deployment, compromised and unethical leadership.
The IFP has long held the view that SA Airways’ reliance in state resources should be limited and phased out into a more sustainable cost model through a public private partnership agreement in order for it to become globally competitive, drive down costs and to restore service excellence. Hon Chairperson, as things stand now, SA Airways is trading recklessly as it has already been put. Instead of bailing out SA Airways, SA Airways should be bailing out South Africans. We are paying so much money to a business which is supposed to be generating money for the state and the fiscus for us to meet the competing priorities and challenges of our people to alleviate their plight and to deal with what we have consistently told the ANC the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality. That money should be coming from the SA Airways making money, yet those who live in conditions of poverty through their taxes have to bailout SA Airways.
We need to bite the bullet. No more bailouts because what you have done is that you have made bailouts a norm whereas they are an exception. It is inexcusable that we have bailed out SA Airways with over R57 billion and been a vacuum either way without any consequences, without any turnaround strategy and it continues as business as usual. SA Airways is holding the gun to our heads to say; if you don’t bail us out then the economy will tank, but what has tanked is SA Airways.
Hon House Chairperson, the problem here is that we have a management crisis at the SA Airways and we have a leadership crisis. We need people who are fit for purpose with the necessary skills, knowledge and expertise to run the entity so that it can fulfill the multiple strategic priorities in which government continues to want it to be kept amongst those is for it to be an economic driver to be a jobs driver. However, as things stand now, SA Airways has become a drain on the National fiscus. As I said we need to bite the bullet. We have lamented long enough. The issue is; the Zondo Commission which is dealing with state capture should focus itself - because it is clear that the tentacles of corruption and state
capture were very much in the space of the state-owned enterprises, SOEs. We should be prioritising the Zondo Commission to be investigating why these entities continue to collapse.
If it means a particular focus on SA Airways and Eskom then we ... eh ... hhayi bo!
Sepedi:
MODULASETULO WA NGWAKO (Moh M G Boroto): Aowa, nna ga se nna.
IsiZulu:
Mnu M HLENGWA: Uyabona indaba ye-“sabotage”. Kusho ukuthi kukhona inxeba esengilithintile ke.
English:
Hon Chairperson, fundamentally what we are saying is that, if we do not deal with the systemic and endemic issues in so far as management collapses are concerned we will not fix SA Airways. We are throwing financial solutions to nonfinancial problems. The SA Airways must bail itself out by doing the right thing everyday in
generating money. The National fiscus cannot afford to continue doing that. The legacy of SA Airways is
R57 billion taken from our taxes whereas it is
R57 billion that should have gone to change the lives of our people.
Who is travelling on SA Airways? Why are we so fixated on keeping SA Airways ... [Time expired.] ... whereas the majority of our people who actually are travelling on trains, are travelling in undesirable trains. Why aren’t you bailing out ... [Inaudible.] ... Prasa, for example, and buy new trains? SA Airways must shake up!
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: Madam House Chair, many politicians fear that their nations will be irrelevant if they abandon their money-losing, flag-flying airlines. In most places, the market would fill the gap, provided the government got out of the way. But national pride is powerful, costly and often stupid. What is SA Airways, SAA’s stated vision?
I quote:
To deliver a commercially sustainable world-class air passenger and aviation service in South Africa, the African continent and to our tourism and trading partners.
Well, that’s fail then. It is a commercial disaster bar none, and a massive drain on the fiscus. SA Airways only continues to fly with massive government assistance to the tune of some R57 billion cumulatively since 1994.
Think about that.
The airline has tried to restructure ten times in the past two decades.
According to Sean Gossel, who teaches at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town, down the road:
Over 50 African countries continue to dabble in the airline industry despite the continent’s poor track record, mainly because a national carrier is believed to be a source of patriotic pride and
economic status, both of which are very seldom borne out in reality.
South Africa, along with Zimbabwe [Interjections.]
Mr J J MAAKE: On a point of order, House Chair.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): Ntate [Mr] Maake,
on what rule are you rising?
Mr J J MAAKE: I wouldn’t know the rule [Laughter.]
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: Well, then sit down.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): Okay, let me
listen.
Mr J J MAAKE: Ja [Yes]. Did I hear the speaker to be saying that national pride is stupid? [Interjections.]
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): Hon Cachalia, do
you want to respond to that? That is not a point of order but do you want to respond to that?
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: It’s a very stupid point. [Laughter.]
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): Okay. Thank you.
I’m not going to ... hon
Mr B A RADEBE: No, hon Chairperson, that language is unparliamentary; referring to other members as stupid.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): Hon Cachalia.
The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: House Chair, I rise on Rule 92. The word stupid is not unparliamentary when used to describe something. Hon Cachalia is not referring to anyone, he’s referring to a thing. Therefore, he’s not out of order.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms G MA BOROTO): What I would want to say to the hon Radebe: I wanted to say that he referred to no one and I know through our conversions and our rules we have not ruled it unparliamentary. Thank you.
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: Right. South Africa, along with Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan and Romania still have tight controls over their airlines, all of which are in debt to the tune of many billions.
Many experts hold that a country should offer subsidies to a foreign airline to run routes that the government wants served. South Africa might not get the boost of having its flag carrier abroad, but taxpayers would win.
Anyway, all of this is moot. SAA is dying; it is in the departure lounge. A lesson that governments should never be involved in airlines. And if they do, a hands-off approach is needed, where government, which may or may not own shares, acts in the background to prop it up, but doesn’t meddle much in day-to-day operations.
But the post 1994 ANC government has provided a textbook case for meddling, dictating labour hiring by way of cadre deployment at every level, and the facilitation of graft. For example, at SAA Technical, the maintenance wing, this meant an inflation of between 30% to 40% due to middle men in the overall expenditure of R3,4 billion.
For doing nothing, dololo. Nice work if you can get it, assuming you have zero morality, that is.
It might have also helped if SAA were located in a place where operating an airline hub makes sense. And in case you need a lesson in geography, we are situated on the southern tip of this continent, along with Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina; we are the closest land mass to Antarctica.
One continental success story is Ethiopian Air. A government-owned but business-driven enterprise that by most accounts is the only true global airline in Africa with a network stretching from Beijing to Los Angeles to Sao Paolo. It has been so successful that other African countries are asking it to manage their airlines.
So, sell this albatross to them or to Richard Branson or anyone else who may be interested. We’ll probably have to pay them to take it off our hands. In any event, SAA is a limited liability company and the cost of closure standing at R19,7 billion.
The choices are clear: close it down, place it in business rescue or pay someone to take it over. And you might even negotiate a small carry to feed your socialist ego.
But to continue to bail it out, having shouldered bailouts to the tune of mega millions is sheer unadulterated madness. [Time expired.]
And as for Dudu Myeni, lock her up and throw the key away. [Applause.]
Ms J TSHABALALA: House Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Members of Parliament and viewers at home, let me quickly go to just this last point about the socialist ego. Do you even know what the socialist ego is? [Interjections.]
The socialist ego is the one that you were speaking about which you said you know it is the one that equates to triple challenges. The society is not equal. Where the DA is sitting it wants unequal society. That is the social ego that you know. Let us tell you what our social ego
is. It is the one that moves towards a just society. [Interjections.]
With that said, we want to say, as the ANC: We support the revolution of Cuba, where Cubans continue to fight for their own freedom. We are saying to them they must continue to dispose and dispel the neoliberals that want to take over and dictate what happens to their country. [Applause.]
The strike at SA Airways has been called off by the two unions, National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Numsa and SA Cabin Crew Association, Sacca. The strike was settled basically on the terms of the management before the strike.
In summary, after two days of discussions under auspices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA, the parties agreed on an increased 5,9% on total cost of employment retrospective to 1 April 2019, which will be paid in the February 2020 payroll, subject to availability of funding.
The section 189 of Labour Relations Act on consultation of possible retrenchment will be deferred to January 2020. Consultations on retrenchment will continue for SA Airways management categories outside the bargaining unit. The parties further agreed to establish a task team whose main objective will be to identify and consider cost-saving initiatives, including insourcing and contracts.
The fact that the unions decided to go on strike before entering into a CCMA-facilitated mediation process means there is a serious trust deficit between organised labour, those in management and the board of SA Airways. The fact that workers took their own company to a brink of collapse, because they would not accept a 5,9% wage increase, suggests that there is more to this dispute than meets the eye.
The most progressive aspect of the settlement is that the agreement to establish a task team made up of management and organised labour to consider ways to save SA Airways. As the ANC, we support this initiative and we hope that it succeeds. Government, trade unions, board executives
of state-owned companies, particularly those facing financial challenges can take a leaf out of the SA Airways as a model of a collective problem-solving strategy.
Now, we need to build a social compact and reject privatisation. I will repeat that: We need to build social compact and reject privatisation. As South Africans, we must realise that with the exception of the likes of the AfriForum, Solidarity, the DA and the FF- Plus, who are still suffering from the apartheid hangover, we are not too far apart in our desire to build successful South African institutions.
In our elections manifesto as the ANC, we call for the strengthening of the social compact between the government, business, labour, civil society and traditional leaders to build a developmental state. We unapologetically say that we will, and I quote:
Strengthen and consolidate existing state-owned enterprises to ensure that they remain focused on their mandates to support socioeconomic
transformation while improving the government systems and containing the costs of their operations. The ANC will extend public ownership guided by the feasibility studies in pharmaceuticals renewable energy and the banking.
In his reply, the President, in the state of the nation address debate that took place this year, 2019, said, and I quote:
We disagree with the view that the most effective and efficient way to provide services to our people is through the private sector. [Interjections.]
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: Madam House Chair! Madame House Chair!
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon member, on what Rule are you rising?
Mr G K Y CACHALIA: Will the hon member be prepared to take a question?
Ms J TSHABALALA: Let me clarify you on policy and where the ANC as the government is headed first. I will come to you later on. Anyway, there is nothing that you are going to ask because you asked me some stupid things. So, I don’t have time for that! [Applause.]
In essence, the ANC has committed not only to reject the neoliberal notion that says only the private sector is capable of delivering services distributing resources in the economy. In our manifesto, we further said that we will extend the role of the state in various sectors of our economy.
Of course, we made this commitment with determination to run a clean state and intensify the fight against corruption. Those who claim that the ANC is seeking to privatise SOEs should read the ANC 2019 Election Manifesto and listen to the President of the country and the President of the ANC.
In this debate, we must be honest with ourselves. Which developmental state in history has ever succeeded by opening up its industries to competition with foreign
capital as South Africa has done? Perhaps, a thought we can consider is to revisit the policy of open skies in our country.
This could be achieved by limiting of a period the licence of foreign and domestic privately owned airlines in order to reposition SA Airways to compete and recover the profitable routes that it used to service. We need to oppose the Solidarity Union’s court application.
In this instance, we are aware of this Solidarity, which is organised labour wing of the AfriForum and the DA that exist in the worst neoliberal tendencies that served papers on SA Airways, the Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises, asking the High Court: To put the national carrier on a business rescue; might be a means to stop South Africa’s loses; and the airline should be sold to private investors.
We are not going to privatise. You don’t have the mandate to govern. We are governing and we are telling you. You can scream all you want. I wish to call on the President, the government and SA Airways and the majority of trade
unions at SA Airways to oppose Solidarity’s court application.
As said earlier, the best way to save SA Airways and all our SOEs is by building social compacts amongst patriotic South Africans to solve the problems confronting this National Treasury, similarly to the task of the SA Airways. The ANC says that we need to look into strategic partnerships, and that is what we are looking into.
So, on this motion, there is no confusion: We are going to move; and we are going to save this airline. So, this confusion that you want to create is not going to exist. And, let me respond to you about the unions that you are speaking about. They are trade unions and they are progressive because they are the leftist trade unions – the organised labour that deals with organised labour force that we have. [Interjections.]
Public service, as we speak, is the highest employer of government. Who is employing more than us in these instances? Then people want to tell us that we must close
down the airlines. Are you saying people must further be unemployed because you are comfortable?
We are stating that we want strategic partnership that will be able to have conditions. The conditions will that the private sector should come on board to make sure that they assist with issues of alleviation of poverty and unemployment. That is a progressive strategic partnership that we are going to have and the state will own the higher percentage.
We need to stand together against the business rescue. The chilly warning by a certain gentleman who is so- called experienced business rescue practitioner on Sunday newspapers was that the shareholder that is government will lose absolute control of the company and the business rescue alone will decide on the way forward.
This is where I will employ my hon Comrade Shaik Emam to say that he needs to listen to the call.
So, as the ANC, we are saying that all progressive organisations cannot allow this to happen. It will signal a major setback of the project of building a democratic
developmental state and an advice by neoliberalism. So, I implore you that we come together and discuss this matter.
The worst thing is that this setback against progress will be inflicted by a group with neofascist leanings, regardless of our differences as the ANC. We must call on the parties that understand the stride to stand shoulder- to-shoulder with the workers, the board and the government to oppose the handover of SA Airways to business rescue practitioners.
Let me respond to you now, I am ready because I am done with the speech. Now, let’s speak to FF-Plus very quickly. There is not much that you said; we know that you were going to say the same things in any case: Business rescue – you want us to sell the airline.
You really are oblivious to the past injustices that we find ourselves in. This is what we are trying to redress and you are busy telling it is better to have a salary than not to have anything. There is a Labour Act that implores bargaining that should happen.
Now, when you come as a responsible Member of Parliament and you are telling us it is better to have a salary than nothing: Don’t you care about the black lives? Don’t you care about a life of a black person that is employed at the lowest skilled labour force? Then you want to tell us that we must just agree! [Time expired.] Ooh my God, when I was about to start. Is my time over?
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Yes!
Ms J TSHABALALA: Eish, I wanted to speak to Mazzone. The ANC, you are on course. Thank you. [Applause.]
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES: House Chair, I
extend my greetings to the hon members of the House. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to participate in a debate on this important matter that hon Inkosi Buthelezi has put for discussion.
I’d like to say from the outset that, having listened to the hon members who came to engage in the discussion, I’m not so sure hon Buthelezi would be so inspired, particularly given how he framed the discussion. He
premised the discussion on invoking a national sentiment that is still ringing in our heads – a very powerful statement that says we are stronger together. It is that sentiment that, through difficulties, keeps us going. I think that was a very powerful platform laid for this discussion. [Interjections.]
I’m sure that cannot be stupid. It is definitely not stupid, and no one can think of it as stupid given just the recent memory we have of how that slogan has carried us through the entire world. I think that is made to be part of this ... is really very important. [Interjections.]
South African Airways is indeed our national flag- carrier, capable of providing reliable and extensive air transportation capacity, linking South Africa with the continent and the world.
Unfortunately, it is objectively the truth that the airline has been financially and operationally challenged for many years as a result of both external and internal challenges.
It is important at this point to say that it is a world- wide phenomenon that the aviation industry is characterised by very thin margins, a phenomenon experienced by the best-performing airlines in the world. South Africa has the added challenge that its geographic location is outside of the main traffic flows of the northern hemisphere.
Compounding these challenges are high costs relative to revenues, inefficiency, low productivity and poor management decisions. These factors have all contributed to the multiplicity of problems at the airline.
It is undeniable that, for the airline to compete effectively and cease being a drain on the fiscus, it is imperative that it be turned around and be made fit for purpose.
The Minister of Public Enterprises, during his Budget Vote speech in this august House, indicated that the department supports the turnaround strategy of SAA.
The turnaround strategy has four main pillars, and I would like to spend some time on it: firstly, revenue stimulation and network optimisation; secondly, the organisational redesign of the entity; thirdly, dealing with supply-chain transformation, as a many of the challenges reside within this area; and, fourthly, the business process transformation, particularly targeting SAA Technical.
During the course of the year, that strategy has been reviewed and updated to take account of the challenging external competitive environment as well as progress in implementing the initiatives.
Despite the challenges it faces, the airline has been making progress. I would like to indicate a few of those aspects of progress in terms of the implementation of that turnaround strategy. Firstly, the airline has obtained approval to lease four A350-900 aircraft to be utilised on the long-haul routes of New York, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. These aircraft are expected to reduce fuel and maintenance costs and boost revenues. The fleet that was used to operate such routes has proven itself to be a
lot more costly in terms of maintenance and fuel costs. Secondly, the airline has concluded its organisational design exercise aimed at streamlining operational and decision-making processes and improving productivity. The airline has initiated the mandated consultation processes to give effect to that redesign. Invoking the provisions of the Labour Relations Act in pursuit of the necessary restructuring that should take place has already been introduced to the airline’s stakeholder community. The airline has reviewed contracts with its top 20 vendors – the so-called evergreen contracts – which account for just over half of the company’s total annual spend. The airline is implementing initiatives to reduce costs. Thus far, over R500 million has been saved.
In addition, the airline has reformed its procurement processes to strengthen governance and eliminate corruption.
A new CEO has been appointed at SAA Technical and other key positions are being filled. Procurement issues have been addressed and the airline is ensuring compliance
with the regulatory requirements of the civil aviation authority.
Importantly, over the past few months, the airline has started to put a management and leadership team in place that is committed to and capable of delivering on its goals.
Government has also pledged support to the airline to enable its turnaround. South African Airways already has a R19,1 billion government guarantee facility of which R11,8 billion is currently utilised. R5,5 billion was transferred to SAA in the current year to enable the carrier to repay debt and fund its working capital requirements.
In addition, during the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, Minister of Finance proposed that R9,2 billion be allocated to SAA over the next three years to repay its existing government-guaranteed debt. He also highlighted that the recovery of the airline was unlikely in its current configuration.
In this, we are in full agreement. Many of the colleagues who spoke here are harping on this question.
To this end, Cabinet recently approved that the state- owned airlines be consolidated into a single group structure. Cabinet also approved that the process of searching the market for strategic equity partners to explore possible partnerships be commenced. In addition to bringing the management expertise required to turn the airline around, such partnerships can result in the burden of any future recapitalisation being shared between government and such partners.
The department has issued a request for proposal for the appointment of transaction advisors to assist in implementing these Cabinet decisions. However, given the challenges facing the airline, achieving a successful turnaround requires alignment and commitment from all stakeholders, including SAA’s board and management, government, lenders, employees and unions.
That is why the message that hon Buthelezi carried in his introduction of this motion is so important because it is
only when there is alignment and when we act together that we are likely to see progress earlier.
The decision by the SA Cabin Crew Association and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Numsa, to embark on industrial action was indeed regrettable and unfortunate in the circumstances. Rather than contributing to the much-needed recovery of the airline, the strike has only served to exacerbate its problems.
Again, having said this, it has also provided an opportunity in which the future possibility of acting together exists. I think confidence needs to be strengthened, and that is what we will be supporting that environment to achieve.
The further aggravation by court action at this time may also not be helpful to the situation. There needs to be a better, nuanced approach to dealing with this difficult matter.
The department believes that the recovery of the airline is still possible and that this can be achieved within
the parameters of the fiscal support already on the table, but this will require determined, concerted action across the board. In saying this, I am speaking to the issue of whether there is still the need for additional support, be it in the form of guarantees or cash injections. The existing arrangements do make for a possibility to undertake all these ventures without the need for the fiscus to be relied upon again.
This can ensure that jobs at the airline are preserved to the extent that that is necessary. This will also maintain connectivity with South Africa’s key trade and tourism partners, with positive spin-offs for the economy, particularly in the tourism sector, which employs many low-skilled people.
As I conclude, this requires that we act together. Of course, it is true that very tough decisions in the immediate need to be made. But, as we do so, it should be that everyone who matters ... of course, ultimately the public is taken into confidence about measures that are taken to conclude this matter so that we have a viable airline. A possibility of partners in the external
environment will strengthen this going forward. Thank you.
Debate concluded.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Let me just clarify that that concludes the debate, hon members. In case there is a question as to why a member of the executive is responding, allow me to point out that it is line with Rule 130(6) as this is a matter of national public importance. In other words, it can’t be the IFP that responds. That is just by way of clarification.
TREVOR NOAH BECOMES THE FIRST AFRICAN COMEDIAN TO SELL OUT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
(Draft Resolution)
Ms S R VAN SCHALKWYK: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes with great pride, that the son of the soil, Trevor Noah, made history over the weekend of 9 and 10 November 2019, as the first African comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden;
(2) also notes that Noah, who is currently on his tour, Loud and Clear, is the fourth highest paid comedian in the world according to Forbes magazine;
(3) acknowledges that despite the demands of hosting a late-night show, Noah made more than 70 stops across the world and had his second Netflix special aired;
(4) also acknowledges that he was born in Soweto, South Africa, and started to hone his comedic skills from the age of 20 years;
(5) recognises that Noah’s autobiographical comedy book, Born a Crime, was published in 2016 and garnered critical acclaim; and that he was named
one of the 35 most powerful people in new york media by The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 and 2018;
(6) congratulates him on his multiple successes, proudly placing South Africa on the global stage and wishes him well in his future endeavours.
Agreed to.
SOUTH AFRICA’S FIRST ANNUAL NATIONAL CHILD SUPPORT AWARENESS WEEK INITIATIVE TO BE HELD FROM 4 TO 10 DECEMBER
(Draft Resolution)
Ms A M M WEBER: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that a recent report from the Institute of Race Relations revealed that only 33% of children in the Republic live in households where both parents are present;
(2) further notes that many single parents across the Republic face daily battles to put a plate of food on the table, while incurring great costs to seek and collect child support from a former partner, who often defaults on child support;
(3) encourages and ensures that legislation is strengthened to ensure the payment of child support;
(4) supports the Child Maintenance Difficulties, South Africa’s first annual national child support awareness week initiative, which will bring attention to the plight of single parents and the impact on children, to be held from 4 until 10 December 2019; and
(5) calls on the Department of Social Development and the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to ensure that parents do not default on child support.
(6)
Agreed to.
SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS REACHES A WAGE AGREEMENT WITH UNIONS
(Draft Resolution)
Ms H O MKHALIPI: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes the wage agreement reached between the South African Airways, SAA, the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa and the South African Airways Cabin Crew Association ratified on 21 November 2019;
(2) also notes that the unions took industrial action against SAA because of the failure of the employer to be reasonable to the plight of workers of the SAA;
(3) acknowledge that the agreement inter alia includes an increase of 5,9% on total cost of employment retrospectively to 1 April 2019 which will be paid in February 2020 payroll, subject to the availability of funding;
(4) also acknowledges that the back payment for the first six months from April to September 2019 will be paid in March 2020 payroll, and the remaining four months from October 2019 to January 2020 back pay will be paid on the April 2020 payroll;
(5) further acknowledges that this is victory for the workers and a lesson to the capitalist that the workers must not suffer because of the greedy and mismanagement of companies by bosses who earn offensively high salaries; and
(6) congratulates the unions and the SAA for finally reaching an agreement.
Power to the workers!
Phansi ngama-capitalist phansi!
AMALUNGU AHLONIPHEKILE: Phansi!
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): If there are no objections I put the motion.
An HON MEMBER: House Chair, the ANC objects.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): There are objections therefore the motion will be converted to a notice of a motion. Thank you.
Ms H O MKHALIPI: House Chair, is the ANC objecting to the workers? The workers must know that the ANC is rejecting to workers.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon member ... [Interjections.]
Ms H O MKHALIPI: That is the ANC for you!
Basebenzi bonani i-ANC yenu!
English:
The enemy of the workers — ANC!
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon members, can we be in order, please? Can we be in order? That kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Can we continue?
SOUTH AFRICAN UNDER 23 SOCCER TEAM QUALIFIES FOR 2020 TOKYO OLYMPICS GAMES
(Draft Resolution)
Mr M P MAPULANE: House Chair, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that the South African under 23 soccer team qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games after snatching a 6-5 penalty shootout victory over Ghana in Cairo on Friday, 22 November 2019;
(2) understands that the penalty shootout followed a
2 – 2 stalemate during the normal 90 minutes’ time;
(3) recalls that the South Africans will join Egypt and the Ivory Coast as the three African representatives among 16 nations in Japan next July and August;
(4) commends the South African junior soccer team and coach, David Notoane, for their hard work they displayed; and
(5) congratulates the team and wishes them well in the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year.
Agreed to.
STATE ADVOCATE ADDELAID FERREIRA-WATT DIES AFTER ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING AT COURT
(Draft Resolution)
Mr N SINGH: Hon House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes the untimely death of senior state advocate, Addelaid Ann Ferreira-Watt, aged 51, who was shot on her left hip when a weapon - believed to be a shotgun booked in as evidence in a house robbery case - was accidentally discharged in a regional court in Umzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal on Monday last week;
(2) understands that she later died in a nearby hospital;
(3) acknowledges the need for proper checks and balances to ensure that exhibits for evidence in our courtrooms, like weapons, are properly disarmed;
(4) calls for a thorough investigation into the incident and that those responsible for the negligence be held accountable; and
(5) extends its deepest condolences to the friends and family of the late senior state advocate, Addelaid Ferreira-Watt.
Agreed to.
MISS SOUTH AFRICA 2019 TO REPRESENT SOUTH AFRICA AT THE MISS UNIVERSE PAGEANT
(Draft Resolution)
Ms T BREEDT: House Chair, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that on 9 December 2019, Miss South Africa 2019, Zozibini Tunzi, will be representing South Africa at the Miss Universe Pageant to be held in Atlanta, Georgia;
(2) further notes that her national costume, designed by Lloyd Kandlin, promotes the #HeForShe campaign and gender equality;
(3) acknowledges her role as an ambassador of South Africa, role model to South Africans especially women and young people, and the part she plays in creating national unity; and
(4) wishes Ms Zozibini Tunzi good luck for the upcoming pageant; may she bring the crown home.
Agreed to.
OFENTSE PITSE BECOMES FIRST BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN WOMAN TO CONDUCT AND OWN FIRST EVER ALL-BLACK ORCHESTRA
(Draft Resolution)
Ms B P MABE: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that young Ofentse Pitse became the first black South African woman to conduct and own the first ever all black orchestra, Anchored Sound;
(2) acknowledges that the 27-year-old, born in Mabopane, grew up with her mother in a single parent home and received influence from her late grandfather who was an orchestra conductor and trumpet player;
(3) recalls that she played her first instrument at the age of 12, but growing up she was exposed to all kinds of music including jazz and gospel that prepared her for a career ahead;
(4) remembers that she sought to create a choir that she began in 2017 with hand-picked young members with training in classical music, and currently has a 40-member orchestra; and
(5) congratulates Ofentse Pitse for breaking the glass ceiling in classical music.
Agreed to.
SUSPECTS APPREHENDED IN THE JESSE HESS CASE
(Draft Resolution)
Ms M E SUKERS: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes the latest developments in the Jesse Hess case, where two suspects have been apprehended and appeared in court for murder, rape and aggravated robbery;
(2) congratulates the police for their hard work, particularly the compassion and support provided by the lead investigator, Colonel Pretorius, which contributed to the progress made;
(3) thanks Minister Lindiwe Zulu for her engagement with Jesse’s aunt, Sandra Hess, which made a difference and helped the family to know that Jesse was not forgotten; and
(4) acknowledges that as we deal with the scourge of violence amplified during women’s month, each one
of us has a role to play in making our country a place of hope and healing for those affected by violence.
Agreed to.
LUYOLO YIBA CROWNED WINNER OF IDOLS SA SEASON 15
(Draft Resolution)
Mr N L S KWANKWA: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that in a first for the Eastern Cape, Luyolo Yiba was crowned the winner of Idols SA, season 15 at Carnival City, Johannesburg, on Sunday night, 17 November 2019;
(2) further notes that Yiba went up against Sneziey Msomi, another fan favourite who won Mzansi’s hearts from the early stages of the competition;
(3) acknowledges that while Yiba and Msomi went head to head on stage, King William’s Town-born Luyolo came out shining at the end and walked away with R1 million in cash, a car, record deal with Gallo Records, musical equipment and clothing vouchers; and
(4) congratulates Luyolo Yiba and wishes him all the best in his music career.
Agreed to.
SHACK FIRES AN INCREASINGLY COMMON OCCURRENCE IN THE INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS OF THE CITY OF EKURHULENI
(Draft Resolution)
Ms M O CLARKE: House Chairperson, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that shack fires are an increasingly common occurrence in the informal settlements of the City of Ekurhuleni;
(2) acknowledges that the vulnerable community members residing in these informal settlements suffer huge trauma every time these fires occur, leaving them destitute and bereft of their personal belongings;
(3) further notes that important documents, such as birth certificates, identity documents and the South African Social Security Agency cards, are destroyed during such disasters;
(4) encourages the city to enter into memoranda of understanding with the Department of Home Affairs, Department of Health and the South African Social Security Agency to dispatch emergency response services to a disaster zones within 48 hours.
Agreed to.
SIXTEEN DAYS OF ACTIVISM FOR NO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN
(Draft Resolution)
Ms O M C MAOTWE: House Chair, I move without notice:
That the House—
(1) notes that Monday, 25 November, marked the beginning of the international 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children;
(2) also notes that the 2019 campaign is particularly poignant for South Africa, as our society has been throttled by brutal incidents of women abuse since the beginning of this year;
(3) further notes that this has defined South Africa as a fundamentally women-hating society, where the lives of women are easily dispensable;
(4) acknowledges that the phenomenon of rape, femicide, misogyny, patriarchy and the sexual harassment at homes, in the workplace, in churches, and in each and every corner of the country has made living a daily struggle for existence of millions of women and girls in this country;
(5) further acknowledges that despite the noise and efforts made in the past, we do not seem to have a handle on how to stop the abuse of women and girls in the country; and
(6) calls on all South Africans to be activists for the liberation of women, and in their daily conduct to eschew the abuse of women and children each and every day of our lives and not only during this period.
Agreed to.
INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
(Draft Resolution)
Ms M R SEMENYA: Chair, I move without notice on behalf of the ANC:
That the House—
(1) notes that 25 November is annually commemorated as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women;
(2) further notes that the 2019 theme for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is, Orange the world: Generation Equality stands against rape;
(3) welcomes the multiyear effort, aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls, which will focus on the issue of rape as a specific form of harm committed against women and girls in times of peace and war;
(4) acknowledges that, like in previous years, this international day will mark the launch of 16 Days of Activism that will conclude on
10 December 2019 which is International Human Rights Day;
(5) further acknowledges that violence against women continues to be an obstacle to achieving equality, development, peace as well as the fulfilment of women’s and girls’ human rights; and
(6) calls upon South Africans to condemn ... [Time expired.]
Agreed to.
NATIONAL DISABILITY RIGHTS AWARENESS MONTH
(Draft Resolution)
Mr S N AUGUST: Chair, I move without notice on behalf of Good:
That the House—
(1) acknowledges National Disability Rights Awareness Month which started on 3 November 2019 and runs until 3 December 2019;
(2) recognises this year’s theme as, building a South Africa inclusive of disability rights;
(3) further acknowledges that we are proud of role models like Noluthando Makalima, a surfer from Khayeltisha who was recently chosen to represent South Africa at the World Adaptive Surfing Championships in the United States, and Mpumelelo Mhlongo who broke his own world record at the World Para Athletics Championships;
(4) also acknowledges that these are only a few examples of great South Africans who are making us proud on the world stage; and
(5) notes that Good advocates that, as a nation, we actively support those living with disabilities
beyond National Disability Rights Awareness Month.
Agreed to.
PLEAS AGAINST ERECTION OF CELLPHONE TOWER IN UITSIG, CALEDON IGNORED
(Draft Resolution)
Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Hon House Chair, I move without notice on behalf of the NFP:
That the House—
(1) notes that the community of Uitsig in Caledon are up in arms that the Theewaterskloof Municipality has ignored their pleas to stop a cellphone tower being erected in their area of residence;
(2) further notes that the erection of cellphone towers is a health hazard to our citizens;
(3) also notes that a study done by a group of scientists declared that technical cellphone infrastructure emits inescapable radiation;
(4) understands that a public health physician, Dr David Carpenter, after extensive research done, expressed grave concern that the effects of the roll-out of 3G, 4G and 5G technology will contribute to more human disease as a result of radio frequency radiation;
(5) further understands that, despite the objections raised by thousands of members of the community of Uitsig in Caledon, the Theewaterskloof Municipality has granted authority to a company called Atlas to erect the said cellphone ...;
(6) realises that the community of Uitsig and particularly members of the Uitsig ... [Inaudible.] ... Forum are being harassed and intimidated; and
(7) calls particularly on the departments of Environmental Affairs and Local Government to put measures in place to protect the health of our citizens and to ensure that public participation which was introduced to ensure that members of the public are able to comment and be heard ... and that all forms of commercial manipulation is not allowed at the expense of the wellbeing of our citizens.
Agreed to.
NEW POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY-COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY SCANNER UNVEILED AT GROOTE SCHUUR HOSPITAL
(Draft Resolution)
Mr K L JACOBS: Chair, I move without notice on behalf of the ANC:
That the House—
(1) notes that on 13 November 2019 a new diagnostic facility was opened at Groote Schuur Hospital in collaboration between the University of Cape Town, UCT, the University of Stellenbosch, the SA Medical Research Council and Siemens;
(2) further notes that additionally, a Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography, PET-CT, scanner was unveiled as a joint programme between UCT and Groote Schuur Hospital;
(3) understands that the use of this device will contribute markedly to the research and development of knowledge on tuberculosis, resulting in improved treatment plans; and
(4) commends the doctors and researchers on their hard work that resulted in this programme achievement.
Agreed to.
LESOTHO SPECIAL PERMIT HOLDERS TO APPLY FOR NEW LESOTHO EXEMPTION PERMITS
(Draft Resolution)
Ms N P PEACOCK: I move without notice on behalf of the ANC:
That the House—
(1) encourages Lesotho Special Permit, LSP, holders to apply for a new permit, as the LSP expires in December 2019;
(2) notes the expiry of the LSP and the need to ensure all persons in South Africa are here on a lawful basis with correct documentation — a ... [Inaudible.] ... four-year special dispensation for Lesotho nationals ... has been approved;
(3) acknowledges that the new Lesotho Exemption Permit, LEP, will help to regularise the stay of Lesotho nationals who are already in South
Africa, and is only applicable to existing holders of the LSP; and
(4) calls on prospective applicants to submit applications online on 18 November 2019, via the Visa Facilitation Services, VFS, website at www.vfsglobal.com/LEP/SouthAfrica.com before the cut-off date for the submission of applications on 31 March 2020.
Agreed to.
ROWING SA TO HOST 2023 WORLD ROWING MASTERS REGATTA AT ROODEPLAAT DAM
(Draft Resolution)
Mr A C ROOS: Chair, I move without notice on behalf of the DA:
That the House—
(1) congratulates Rowing SA on securing the rights to host the 2023 World Rowing Masters Regatta at the Roodeplaat Dam;
(2) recognises that this is the first world rowing event ever to be held in Africa;
(3) notes that the championships will boost tourism by bringing thousands of athletes and tourists to South Africa;
(4) calls on the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries to ensure the integrated control of aquatic weeds at the Roodeplaat Dam so as not to put the championships at risk.
Agreed to.
NDLOVU YOUTH CHOIR WINS HOLLYWOOD MUSIC IN MEDIA AWARD
(Draft Resolution)
Ms N K BILANKULU: Chair, I move without notice on behalf of the ANC:
That the House—
(1) notes that the Ndlovu Youth Choir, a rural choir based in Moutse, in Limpopo province, has again made South Africa proud by winning an award in collaboration with the flautist Wouter Kellerman at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, when they won the best independent music video for their Zulu version of Ed Sheeran's Shape of You at the Avalon in Hollywood, California, on
20 November 2019;
(2) recalls that the choir recently performed at the Eat Out Awards and have an album coming out soon via Sony Music;
(3) remembers that they firstly made waves when they became runners-up on the popular reality competition show, America's Got Talent 2019;
(4) acknowledges that they have become young ambassadors of a united Africa;
(5) further acknowledges that it’s sad that it takes a village to raise a child;
(6) also acknowledges that in this instance, Moutse village in Limpopo went beyond and raised a sensational group of children; and
(7) congratulates the Ndlovu Youth Choir for flying the South African flag high.
Agreed to.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon member, why are you rising?
Mr W T LETSIE: Hon Chair, I’m rising on a point of order.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): What’s your point of order, hon member?
Mr W T LETSIE: My point of order is with regard to the DA. They have finished everything. They are not congratulating the after 12 Mokgalapa in Tshwane. [Interjections.]
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Thank you hon member. That’s not a point of order. That’s not a point of order, hon member.
The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: House Chairperson, I’m sorry to have to rise and disrupt the proceedings, but that’s the second time where that member has taken a point of order that is not a point of order and that is out of order. Chair, I would ask you to ask the ANC Whips to keep their members in control ... [Interjections.] ... because if he does that one more time I’m going to refer him to the Rules Committee.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Okay hon member, I’ve heard that.
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
(Member’s Statement)
Mr F JACOBS (ANC): Thank you, House Chair. The ANC notes that in 1997, the United Nations General Assembly called for the annual observance on November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. The ANC further notes that the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian people has a mandate to advise the General Assembly on the programme to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their rights, including the right to self- determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and property from which they have been dispossessed.
The ANC acknowledges that the committee has strongly supported the objective of the two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognised borders. The ANC further acknowledges that the committee strives to heighten international awareness of all aspects of the question of the Palestinian people and
promotes international support for and assistance of the Palestinian people.
The ANC celebrates the opening of the exhibit “Palestine
– the most universal of national causes” consisting of pictures and quotes by well-known public figures who have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people – and will be inaugurated at the United Nations on 27 November. Thank you. [Applause.] [Time expired.]
PRECIOUS RAMABULANA RAPED AND STABBED
(Member’s Statement)
IsiXhosa:
Mnu B B NODADA (DA): Mhlali-ngaphambili...
English:
... 21-year-old Precious Ramabulana died after being allegedly raped and stabbed 52 times in the early hours of Sunday morning. She was a DA student organisation activist and was studying Business Management at the Capricorn Technical and Vocational Education and
Training, Tvet, College, Ramakgopa Campus, Mokomene village in Limpopo. This is just a latest example of violent incidence which paints a picture of universities and Tvet colleges as increasingly brutal violent and unpleasant spaces to study and work.
The DA has called for a wide-ranging and comprehensive Ministerial Commission on Violence and Trauma on university and college campuses, following the escalating levels of violence across campuses which have reached crisis levels. In recent month, we have seen murders, rapes, suicides and violence at institutions of higher learning throughout the country. We need to prioritise safety at institutions of higher learning by implementing agent security reforms in student residences.
We need to accredit staff safe accommodation of campus where universities or Tvets have capacity to house students on campus and the political will to begin the process of constructing safer student residences.
IsiXhosa:
Sithi kusapho lukaPrecious, akuhlanga lungehliyo. Lala ngoxolo ntokazi.
English:
This happened at the start of 16 Days of Activism and it shows exactly why we should have 365 days of activism. [Applause.]
KHAYA CEKESHE CONTINUES TO BE MAULED
(Member’s Statement)
Mr P P KEETSE (EFF): House Chairperson, the EFF is really disturbed and disgusted by the continued mauling of Comrade Khaya Cekeshe by our justice system. Khaya Cekeshe was tried and imprisoned for his role in the advancement of struggle for free quality education in this country. However, the state decided to pick him as a guinea pig to make example of him that should there be anyone who dares to challenge the status quo will end up being like Comrade Khaya Cekeshe.
Khaya fought so that the children of the poor can have access to the universities and Tvets, not only that but equally. Our mothers and fathers can be able to be insourced and employed directly by the universities. He was selfless and brave, for that the system does not want to forgive him and will never forgive him. The continued incarceration of Comrade Khaya Cekeshe is evil, it is brutal and inhuman. Despite reports by his lawyer that he is suffering psychological trauma, our state continues to keep him incarcerated, as if we do not have some of the members of the executive who were once leading young people who understand the nature and the struggle of young people who understand that there is no formula in protests.
I’m speaking about like Comrade Njabulo Nzuza. I’m speaking about the current Minister of Justice, Comrade Ronald Lamola. I’m speaking about the former President of the ANC Youth League, Comrade Fikile Mbalula. I’m speaking about comrade who led young people like Comrade Zizi Kodwa here. [Applause.] [Time expired.]
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon members! Hon members, we work according to time. Hon members, please we work according to time. One and half minute is allocated for this and nothing more.
ACTION PLAN TO COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN
(Member’s Statement)
Ms J C N MKHWANAZI (ANC): Thank you, Chairperson. In support of identified for the gender-based violence victims, we welcome the immediate action plan outlined by His Excellency the President, which aims to combat violence against women and children through a co- ordinated government and civil society efforts. Some of these are identification of strategic buildings in all provinces by the Department of Public Works and infrastructure for accommodation for victims of gender- based violence.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development will also evaluate government personnel working directly with children and persons with intellectual challenges.
Thus far, the department has vetted approximately 500 department officials, 1 500 prosecutors and 2 942 family violence. Children protection and sexual offenses members will be vetted against the National Register for sex offenders as required by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2007. These are the few measures amongst many other identified which will contribute towards the finalisation of the National Strategic Plan which will be submitted by government by the end of November 2019. Thank you, Chair.
START OF THE 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM CAMPAIGN
(Member’s Statement)
Mr S L NGCOBO (IFP): Hon House Chairperson, yesterday the Inkatha Freedom Party joined millions of men and women around the world in making the start of the 16 Days of Activism campaign for no-violence against women and children in Pietermaritzburg. The event coincided with shocking news that a Capricorn Tvet College student, Precious Ramabulana, was stabbed to death over the weekend in Limpopo. South Africa is one of the most
dangerous countries for women and children to live in. This must change.
The IFP believes that in order to bid South Africa’s high levels of violence against women and children, we need the following: We need to introduce a gender equality module into the school curriculum; we need a social worker in every community, especially at schools where violence is rive; we need rape kit at all police stations; we must restore discipline at schools and in the home; we need to lead a campaign of moral revival in our communities; and we need greater accountability from departments that fail the most vulnerable, starting with the Department of Social Development, Police, Justice and Constitutional Development.
As we commence the 16 Days of Activism campaign, the IFP calls on every South African and in particular all of us men in the House to commit ourselves fully. Thank you. [Applause.] [Time expired.]
STATE OF MUNICIPALITIES UNDER SECTION 139(B)
(Member’s Statement)
Mr W W WESSELS (FF Plus): Hon House Chair, the FF Plus wishes to raise its serious concern with regard to the state of municipalities under section 139(b) provincial intervention and the lack of any improvement in such municipalities to be detriment of service delivery and the residents of such. One example is the Masilonyana Local Municipality which was under administration from April 2017 until recently. This municipality showed no improvement outstanding debt to Eskom increased during this period, water infrastructure collapsed, audit outcome regressed and the financial position further deteriorated.
It is shocking that the Free State executive recently resolved to end the 139 intervention effectively giving up on the people of Masilonyana. The National Treasury has informed Masilonyana recently that it will not receive its equitable share payment due invoking section 2(162) of the Constitution as the municipality passed an unfunded budget. This failure to pass a funded budget occurred whilst under provincial intervention. This shows
the complete failure of the Free State government. The people of this municipality will suffer due to the ANC government’s failure to comply with legislation.
Co-operative governance and the mandate of provincial and national spheres of government to capacitate local government and enforce compliance are failing. Thank you, Chair. [Time expired.]
Ms N Q MVANA: Chairperson, a Bloemfontein grandmother is great full for the ANC government for doing everything for her visually impact grandson. [Interjections.] That one was Tebogo Mosala. The 89-year-old Mamalo said these words on the occasion of handing over the keys of the house to her grandson by the President of South Africa and the Free State Premier on 1 November. Mamarumo said her son was born blind and does not work was firstly given a disability grant and now her son was given a house. Tebogo is one of the recipients of the department development housing programme which has also built houses for the bounded and Military Veterans. The house was handed over fully furnished. Thank you.
Ms S J GRAHAM-MARÉ: Chairperson, the Eastern Cape is in a mist of a crippling draught the effects of this draught are evident in Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipality where the Nqweba dam Graaff Reinet main water source has been dry since February resulting in an ongoing water shortages to the towns of 40 000 residences. Some residents have up to 215 days without water this year alone. Even there is nothing flows through the parts the meters continue to turn and residents are being charged for air. Thousands of fish died as the dam dried up. The residents were left with the responsibility of cleaning the dam and over two days organised by the Assembly Church 74 000 dead fish were cleared from the dam by volunteers and were disposed of.
Despite an allocation of R30 million for draught relief the municipality failed to spend the funds in time and have to apply for the roll-over. The mayor is nowhere to be seen, the municipal manager is conspicuously absent. There is a complete lack of communication, water truck deliveries are sporadic unlike the DA’s proactive day zero programme in Cape Town which effectively prevented day zero. The Dr Beyers Naude Municipality has no plan
what so ever mean while thirsty residents are left sucking on air by an uncaring ANC government. Thank you.
Dr B H HOLOMISA: Chairperson for sometime now the United Kingdom has required South Africans to apply for Visas to visit the UK because of that country’s security concerns this includes the tidies requirement to obtain a transit visa to connect with flights to other countries yet South Africa is still committed to freely welcome UK travellers and business people to our shores. Rightly or wrongly there seems to have been a taint of distrust of South Africans that arose around 2008 and 2009.
Much has changed since then, and one would argue that the time has come for the British and South African government to re-assess and to alleviate a situation that by design unfairly penalises South Africans and virtually still blends us as potential terrorist. The UDM calls upon the South African government to sit down with their British counterparts to re-evaluate and to … whether the reasons for the decision still stand also the British government must please be requested to publish the details on where we are failing.
Ms J MANANISO: Chairperson, the ANC condemns the vandalism and setting of fire on trains in Gauteng recently. Some of the affected station includes Park Station, Maritzburg, Braamfontein and Germiston. It is alleged that in Park station a number of criminals possible entered the station attacking and looting some of the shops. Breaking glasses, tickets windows more alarming however was the stoning of the train resulting in a broken wheel shield. It is alleged that the act of vandalism coincide with Prasa attempted termination of security contracts which would have put many security guards protecting the railways out of work.
As the ANC we want to argue that we would not allow harassment and criminal activities to happen in our safe stations. We understand that the issue of losing jobs is a concern to every citizen but we cannot allow vandalism and sabotage. These trains belong to the nation of South Africa, setting them on fire and vandalism is a crime against the people.
There is nothing to justify such crime. The ANC urges the South African Police to be vigilant and arrest those
responsible for crimes of this nature. The perpetrators should be charged and a clear message has to be sent, that we would want to condemn any criminal activities. Thank you.
Mr B M HADEBE: Chairperson the recent allegation of racism in the DA involving the Swartland Mayor has not come as the surprise to the ANC, in fact we are not perplexed or flabbergasted because we know the real DA and its true colours.
Chairperson it is alleged that in a meeting in Maritzburg the DA Mayor made a statement declaring coloured people not competent to hold position of leadership or office.
This resulted to the DA acting Constituency Chairperson Belson writing to the DA leader Mr Madikizela calling for a motion of no confident and for urgent disciplinary measures to be taken against the Mayor.
Chairperson as if this insult was not enough it is also alleged that the Mayor advised Basel to refrain from registering Black South African as DA members and also not to certify the proof of address for Blacks. The ANC
believes that commence made by the Mayor once again unmask the true character of the DA as the racist party constituted of the unrepentant, unreformed bigots with cantankerous, non compos mentis behaviour, who are now back at the hands of the Helen Zille following the departure of the fronting leader Mmusi Maimane. The ANC
...
Mr A C ROOS: Chairperson, more than a year ago the United Nations Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights pull down South Africa to ensure that all children have access to education, but because of failures at Home Affairs undocumented children are still refused entry to schools in our country. According to United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNISEF) it is estimated that 5% of South African children do not have birth certificates. The South African Human Rights Commission furthermore states that the vast majority of learners adversely affected and impacted by lack of documentation are poor Black learners from predominately rural areas.
Basic Education Circular 1 of 2019 provides a grace period to get documented, but without the proactive
assistance of Home Affairs many of these children cannot access this service and are thrown out of school or denied examination admission due to lack of documentation. This is unfair discrimination as they do not personally have power to correct the situation.
Furthermore Section 28(2) about constitution states that the best interest of the child is of paramount importance in all matters concerning the child.
The Deputy Minister should tell this House why children can still be denied access to school due to lack of documentation and what steps Home Affairs and Basic Education would undertake to urgently assist such children.
HOMES DESTROYED IN VUSIMUZI, TEMBISA
(Member’s Statement)
Mr B S MADLINGOZI (EFF): Chairperson, at Vusimuzi, in Ward 90 in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, the municipality, along with supporters of the ward councillor, Hendrick Selwana, are attacking and destroying people’s homes. When people
mobilise in order to stop the attacks they are threatened with violence. The leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo in the area, Melita Ngcobo, was assaulted, arrested and then jailed. She has been denied medical attention. What has become of our world ... our nation for abusing and violating women’s rights as well as human rights?
South Africa is facing a very painful and difficult situation of femicide, the killing of women. It is very shameful to see our government doing the same thing to people who are fighting for basic rights such as the right to a home.
The demolition of homes still continues in the area. Melita Ngcobo was arrested for standing up to a government that attacks poor black people in violation of the law and a court order. She was standing up for the dignity of human beings; for justice. Instead of defending her, the police stood by while she was assaulted by supporters of the councillor. They then arrested her, detained her and denied her medical attention.
The ANC is contradicting itself. President Ramaphosa and Police Minister Mr Cele have committed themselves to ensuring that the government works to stop gender-based violence. Yet, the very same organs of state that are supposed to protect women in our country are violating their rights. We call for an urgent halt to the demolition of people’s homes in Ekurhuleni. Makuyekwe! [Stop it!]
ALLEGED HUMAN TRAFFICKERS ARRESTED
(Member’s Statement)
Mr M J WOLMARANS (ANC): House Chair, the ANC applauds the recent arrest of seven Chinese and Taiwanese nationals who were busted for operating a factory allegedly involved in the trafficking of illegal immigrants and subjecting them to forced labour in our country. These nationals were arrested on 12 November in a joint operation between the Department of Employment and Labour, the SA Police, SAPS, and the Hawks. At this company called Beautiful City Pty Ltd and located at Village Deep in Johannesburg, officials discovered that
minor children were employed at the factory and that the employer was violating labour legislation ranging from the National Minimum Wage, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. An audit by the department found that there were 91 workers employed at this factory.
The ANC is appalled that this employer has not only contravened the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Unemployment Insurance Contributions Act, but has also spat in the face of the vulnerable by disregarding section 27 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa that guarantees employees the right to social security. We are deeply angered and strongly condemn the abuse of these workers by these human traffickers. We call on the government to take drastic measures to deal with cheap labour and human trafficking. Thanks Chair.
BULLYING AT JAN VILJOEN HIGH SCHOOL
(Member’s Statement)
Mr H G APRIL (ANC): The ANC is advocating that gender- based violence is everyone’s business and must be addressed by all of us every day. The recent sad story of bullying that occurred at Jan Viljoen Hoërskool [High School] and that went viral on social networks is a cause for concern. It is reported that a white girl-learner bullied a boy-learner and the boy-learner didn’t even respond or fight back. What a gentleman! Those who were involved were all suspended for failing to report it or to intervene. The departments of Education and Social Development, social services, school governing body, SGB, and the principal all worked together and ensured that the victim undergoes psychosocial counselling sessions while the hearing is unfolding.
The ANC, as the leader of society, has taken interest in this matter because it believes that bullying must be condemned at all schools, regardless of race, class or sex. The ANC’s Member of Parliament for Rand West’s parliamentary constituency office, PCO, Jane Mananiso, visited the school to check if all the allegations were dealt with according to the law, and that the
perpetrators are brought to book so that no-one becomes a part of the statistics on gender-based violence.
We applaud the principal for upholding the principle ... even if the case happened outside the school. The learners were dressed in school uniforms and therefore he acted. We, the ANC, are a caring organisation that ensures that gender-based violence shall never take place under our watch. Therefore, the ANC, unlike these others that judge people according to race, is the organisation that says we are not going to sit down ... around while gender-based violence happens at schools. Thank you. [Applause.] [Interjections.]
(Minister’s Response)
The MINISTER OF POLICE: Chair, we will definitely approach the hon member uBaba Madlingozi to get more information about the issue that he has raised. The state organs cannot be used for any personal gain, especially not at the expense of the women who are standing up for their rights. We will just get more in formation, act and report back to the House.
Regarding the second matter, all South Africans must stand up against what happened to the young person at Capricorn, without fear and political affiliation. I have never experienced such brutality. It is not just a murder, but with severe brutality to the young person. We are working on the matter. We are not very far on the matter. We have just received the report about 30 minutes ago.
We are calling on ourselves to work around the scenes and crimes of passion and to look how we work around ... We are not saying that this is a crime of passion, but we are working around male partners, including the young police officer in Tzaneen that was shot and killed by the husband. We need to look around those things and we must all condemn it, but the state organs must really respond decisively to the people that are especially maiming and killing women, starting now. Thank you.
(Minister’s Response)
The MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR WOMEN, YOUTH AND
PERSONS WITH DISABILITY: Hon Chair, we had yet another
launch of 16 days of activism against abuse, gender-based violence and femicide with the President in Lephalale yesterday. We are comforted in pain that all political parties in this room agree that patriarchy and ... [Inaudible.] ... is not a problem of women and yesterday, at the launch it was reiterated by the President. It really cannot be that we continue launching and according to the UN we are the most progressive, but women still smell freedom.
So, all men who are progressive need to stand up and join the message of women that enough is enough. It is going to take government, partnership with government, the private sector, communities, churches and all of us, starting with the emergency plan that the President has launched with all political parties in this room for the next six months. Moving on, we need to go back to the basics and work together.
The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security, JCPS, cluster needs to take care of what needs to be taken care of.
Sepedi:
... efela tlogatloga e tloga kgale ...
Socialisation of our children at home before we take them to school is for the future, but as for the MSP that has been finalised will be launched and utilised. From April 2020, we will all be working together.
I have not heard a nay-voice. I think we all need to stand up and say, enough is enough! Real men don’t maim and kill women.
(Minister’s Response)
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES:
Chair, I just want to respond to the statement on the operation of the National Register for Sex Offenders. It is correct. It is currently operational and we will be bringing legislation to this House early in the new year to extend the register, to cover all acts of sexual offences and to broaden the aspect of who can apply to have a look at the register.
With regard to the issue of Kanye Cekeshe, he is ... We are a state that is based on the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law. So, he was imprisoned by the court. He has appealed against the sentence. He cannot just be released. You must also remember that he has not been imprisoned for struggling for free education. He has been imprisoned because he was found guilty of burning a police vehicle. That is the fact.
The problem is that in many of the public protests there is a large amount of damage to property. There was a large amount of damage to property that was caused during the protests for free education.
However, as the former Minister and the current Minister have both said, he is entitled to look at other remedies
- applications to the President for pardon or other such remedies. So that is there, but he cannot just be released by the President without following due process. Thank you. [Interjections.]
(Minister’s Response)
IsiXhosa:
USEKELA MPHATHISWA WEZOKUHLALISWA KOLUNTU EZAMANZI
NOGUTYULO LWELINDLE: Enkosi Sihlalo. Ndicela ukuxelela le Ndlu ukuba ngonyaka we-1955 i-ANC eKliptown, yaqulunqa umQulu weNkululeko, yathatha isigqibo esithi...
English:
... there shall be houses, security and comfort.
IsiXhosa:
Yayiyibonile ngelaa xesha into yokuba xa umama uMosala ezakufumana indlu eneminyaka engama-89 ubudala, abantu bethu babesebenza emakhitshini besebenza phantsi korhulumente wocalucalulo. Umbutho we-ANC noku unoxanduva lokwakhela abantu abadala, abagqiba amandla abo emakhitshini ukuze kuthi xa bebadala bakhutshelwe ngaphandle.
Sithi, sizakuthi gqolo ukubakhela aba bantu, siyazi ukuba sisemva ngokomsebenzi(backlog) ngento eyenziwe ngurhulumente wocalucalulo. Asikagqibi sisaya phambili.
Sisezakubakhela izindlu abantu bethu. Ezi zizenzo ezenziwa ngurhulumente weDA owasebenzisa abantu abadala.
Namhlanje bayakhuza bathi siyacotha ekwakheni izindlu. Sisemva kumsebenzi wokwakha izindlu kodwa sizakubakhela abantu bethu akukabi phi. Wonke umntu uzakuhlala endlini. Enkosi.
(Minister’s Response)
The MINISTER OF TRANSPORT: Chairperson, I first want to explain the issue of the securities. You will know that the Auditor-General has found irregular and fruitless expenditure at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, Prasa, and that has affected a number of security companies, which irregularly received work from Prasa.
Over and above that, you would know that Prasa is leading in terms of fruitless expenditure – about R3,5 billion.
You will know that some of the people who are involved in crippling the railway lines come from those companies.
You know that we have worked with the police to deploy, whilst some of these companies have been affected. So, there is no question of unemployment. It is a question of some security companies that have received contracts from
Prasa irregularly and paid millions of rand over a period of time.
They are mobilising for them to actually continue with irregularity. Of course, there is judgment on the matter in terms of Cape Town High Court and Johannesburg, which is where Prasa is processing.
Over and above that, we are responding to that particular question in relation to the powers of the Minister and how we need to process all those particular issues.
So, we are committing to that and that is why we have implemented the intervention mechanism of the warroom to address some of the issues. [Time expired.] Thank you.
Siswati:
LISEKELA LENDVUNA YETEMFUNDVO LESISEKELO: Sihlalo Wendlu,
lengifuna kukundlulisa lapha kutsi Litiko Letemfundvo Lesisekelo kanye neLitiko Letasekhaya babambisene kahle kakhulu etindzabeni tekubhaliswa kwebantfwana. Bantfwana bonkhe eNingizimu Afrika nabacedza nje kubelekwa esibhedlela bayabhaliswa bese nabeta esikolweni beta
baphetse tincwadzi, bese kutsi labasuka kulamanye emave bete ngemsebenti, bayaniketwa futsi nabo tincwadzi letifanele. Kantsi ke laba labete batali balapha eNingizimu Afrika, futsi Litiko Letasekhaya linendlela yekutsi babhaliswa njani labo bantfwana, kungakoke Litiko Letemfundvo Lesisekelo litsite baniketwa litfuba letinyanga letintsatfu kutsi abete batewubhalisa bese balungisa lamaphepha, bayabhalisa.
Sifuna kubonga kakhulu kuthishelanhloko, kuloko lokukhulunywe ngako kutsi, usheshe wayisukumela etulu lendzaba yekuhlukumetana kwebantfwana, kutsi bantfwana nangabe balwa, nome bangakalwi esikolweni kodvwa basese bantfwana besikolo, ngoba sishilo satsi tindzaba tekuphepha esikolweni tibukene nemtimba lophetse esikolweni, SGB, kungako kunemakomiti etekuphepha esikolweni emaSGB. Ngako sifuna kumbonga kakhulu thishelanhloko, nalabanye bothishelanhloko labaningi labenta kutsi labantfwana labete similo ngenca yetibalobalo letibalwe lilunga lelihloniphekile leDA, kutsi ngu 30% kuphela webantfwana labakhula ngaphansi kwababe namake, laba labanye bakhula batfukutsele bese
bayalwisana, kodvwa sibonga kubambisana lokukhona emphakatsini. Ngiyabonga.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D NTOMBELA): I think that
was the sixth one.
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND CO-
OPERATION: Chair, we just want to respond to the issues of Palestine. I don’t think you have noted me.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D NTOMBELA): Not now, hon
Alvin. Did I do the sixth one?
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS: Chair, we do commend the work that is being done by the Department of Labour. We will continue to work with them to stop employers who are doing something very wrong, which is to employ people who are here in the country illegally and we will make sure that we continue to enforce the laws of this country to stop the abuse of foreign nationals who are abused by these employers on the basis that they are being paid less. We will also continue to do so.
All children born in South Africa are registered as South Africans. Those children who deserve to be citizens of South Africa are given necessary documentation. Those who do not have the right to be South Africans, we issue what we call a notice of birth and that must then go to the country where that children is supposed to belong so that they then issue the necessary birth certificate for that children.
We have issued an instruction to our inspectorate not to go hunting children in schools but to keep them there until their issues are resolved. Thank you.
The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D NTOMBELA): Hon members,
one of the most important critical aspects of our responsibilities is to make sure that the Ministers and Deputy Ministers account. By so doing, we are giving our people out there an opportunity to get answers that they want from our Ministers in Parliament. I would therefore urge you to give the Ministers and Deputy Ministers as much chance as possible to respond to these things. They are not only talking to us in the House; they are talking
to the public out there. So, we would really request your indulgence in that regard.
NOTICES OF MOTION
Ms A S ZUMA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates supporting locally manufactured goods and services as a recognised contributing to job retention and job creation. I thank you. [Applause.]
Ms N K SHARIF: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the DA:
That the House, debates the impact of the use of sexually explicit images and videos in other words pornography as well as reverse porn and how they contribute to the spread of gender-based violence. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr M N PAULSEN: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the EFF:
That the House, debates the professionalisation of the SA Public Service where competent candidates are recruited and developed to the benefit of all South Africans.
Mr S W MDABE: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates strengthening the co- operation between the state, private sector, and civil society to combat illicit trade. I thank you.
Inkosi B N LUTHULI: Hon House Chairperson, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the IFP:
That the House, debates the root causes of violence in South Africa, the moral decay and lawlessness
that has besieged our society and the need for moral revival in our communities. I thank you.
Mr P A VAN STADEN: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the FF Plus:
That the House, debates the high volume of problems experienced with the maintenance of the medical equipment and machinery in state hospitals, the type of equipment and machinery that is out of order and the reasons for delays in effecting repairs and maintenance. Thank you, Chair.
Ms X NQOLA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates the use of previously marginalised official languages in South African courts to ensure that justice is accessible to all citizens. I thank you.
Mr S N SWART: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ACDP:
That the House, given the tragic drowning of four teenagers this past Sunday at Three Anchor Bay, which followed two other drowning at Strandfontein, debates the urgent need for improved public awareness and education about the dangers of rip tide and current and the need for far more lifesavers to be on duty on our beaches, particularly with the Christmas school holidays approaching.
Mr N L S KWANKWA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the UDM:
That the House, debates the urgent need to discuss measures on how to mitigate the effects of clime change on food and water security in South Africa.
Ms E R J SPIES: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the DA:
That the House, debates the high increase in dropouts from the National Certificate Vocational training programme which is a Ministerial funded programme. [Applause.]
Mr M N PAULSEN: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the EFF:
That the House, debates how, the South African government can play a leading role in the application of climate mitigation strategies.
Mr B S YABO: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates initiatives to improve the country’s skills development in the fields of science and technology. I thank you.
Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the NFP:
That the House deliberates on the poor and or lack of adequate funding for women’s sports in South Africa.
Ms V T MALINGA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates the revival and strengthening of state-owned enterprises, in order to deliver on their developmental mandates through advancing key national objective.
Ms M D MABILETSA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates addressing the challenges of poverty and inequality, through industrialising the economy, in order to enhance greater levels of participation by historically disadvantaged citizens.
Ms H S WINKLER: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the DA:
That the House, debates the need for Parliament to set a precedent and an example to South Africa and take proactive measures to prevent plastic pollution by discarding the use of water bottles during its business and adopting environmentally friendly alternatives for consuming water. [Applause.]
Mr G J SKOSANA: Hon House Chair, I hereby give notice that on the next sitting day of the House I shall move on behalf of the ANC:
That the House, debates encouraging the private sector to target youth and make use of youth employment incentive schemes. I thank you.
The House adjourned at 18:16.
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