Mr Speaker, I move:

Agreed to.

Mr Speaker, at the very outset I should like to move the following as an amendment to the motion of the hon the Minister of Finance:

1. (1) to curb overspending by the State, particularly in respect of public consumption expenditure;
2. (2) to spell out a clear, acceptable plan for a future political dispensation for the Republic; and
3. (3) to take effective steps to prevent the crowding-out of Whites from their traditional living areas.”.

Mr Speaker, in his Second Reading speech the hon the Minister spoke very briefly, giving no review or analysis of the economic situation in the country. His whole speech, in fact, consisted solely of the announcement of the amounts he has requested Parliament to appropriate. At the end of his speech the hon the Minister rightly said that attempts should not be made to draw conclusions or make deductions from the figures he mentioned.

I really must say, Mr Speaker, that the temptation to do a bit of arithmetic in this regard was quite a strong one—a bit of arithmetic involving percentages, future expectations, etc. I shall nevertheless refrain from doing so and heed the hon the Minister’s appeal.

Wise decision!

Before coming to the main theme of my speech, there is something else I first want to point out. From today’s morning papers we learn that the Government has taken certain decisions, as published in a regulation in the Gazette, in regard to the State Pension Fund.

I find it somewhat strange that last year, whilst the whole question of the State pension funds was being dealt with by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the hon the Minister of National Health and Population Development thought fit to deal with the matter in the House of Assembly, before the standing committee had adopted any resolutions and made recommendations. I was then reproached by the chief spokesman of the governing party for having broached the matter.

The standing committee nevertheless adopted certain resolutions and made certain relevant recommendations last year, and the standing committee expected the hon the Minister to have made the Government’s resolutions on the recommendations known to the committee. Now we get the Government’s resolutions by way of the morning Press.

Certain relevant questions crop up. According to the Cape Times of this morning, what the resolution amounts to is this:

This is unambiguous language, but now certain questions arise that I should like to put to the hon the Minister of Finance. It is common knowledge that the State pension funds are experiencing financial problems. When, during the sittings of the standing committee last year, we asked what was to be done, the reply was that we did not need to concern ourselves about the actuarial shortfall existing in the funds because, it was said, the State could not go bankrupt. What that amounted to was that if problems were to arise, the taxpayer would make good these shortfalls.

I also want to put certain questions. There is an accumulated shortfall in the State pension funds, and if these funds are now expected to impose the same discipline as private pension funds in the future, who is going to pay for that shortfall? Is it going to be future public servants, or will it be taxpayers? I should also like to know, if the State pension funds are expected to impose the same discipline as the private pension funds, whether the State will also give the State pension funds the relative freedom of choice for investments that private pension funds have or whether the backlog of the State pension funds will merely remain. I mention that merely in passing.

In this advertisement which was signed by the hon the State President and has now appeared in all the newspapers, we are told: “Ons moet ons gordels intrek, ons moet Staatsbesteding beheer, ons moet inflasie takel.” I was always under the impression that one Minister of Finance after another had told us in the past that they were in control of Government expenditure. They told us they were tackling inflation.

In the advertisement we are being told, by implication, that the Government is now going to do so. I was always under the impression that the Government had tried to do so in the past, but in looking at last year’s Budget we find that the hon the Minister budgeted for an increase of between 16% and 17% in Government expenditure. For the first nine months of the financial year that expenditure was already 21,7%, and if the hon the Minister wanted to remain within his budgetary estimate, it meant that in the last three months he would have had to spend considerably less than was actually budgeted for, and that we cannot believe.

In the past few years it has already become, I can almost say, acceptable for the hon the Minister’s budgeting for a deficit before borrowing not to be realized at all at the end of the financial year.

Even if we examine the current financial year, at this stage it is very clear to us that in this regard the hon the Minister’s budget is not on target either. As a result, as far back as September of last year public debt increased to the massive amount of R54 000 million.

The hon the State President says that we—the State and also individuals—must tighten our belts, but let us look at what the position was and what it has become in the past three years. According to Reserve Bank statistics for the 1985 calendar year, the State took up 35% of net national savings to cater for its own needs. In 1986 this increased to 68% of net national savings and, in the 1987 calendar year 90%. [Interjections.] Whilst the net savings for the country, during that calendar year, were approximately R10 billion, the State took R9 billion to cater for its own needs.

We have now reached the bottom of the widow’s cruse, and I do not think it is going to be possible, any longer, for the hon the Minister—I do, however, hope it will be possible for him—to finance the deficits for the coming year by way of loans. I hope there will not be a deficit before borrowing, although I think that is a vain hope.

Is your ideal no deficit before borrowing?

That is my ideal, unless that deficit before borrowing is employed for capital expenditure and not for normal Government expenditure.

That is a difference.

Let us understand each other very clearly on that point. That would be in conflict with the policy the hon the Minister has adopted in recent years of paying for current expenditure by way of loans.

For the immediate future, ie the next two years, for practical reasons it will not be possible for the effect of the announced privatization policy on the borrowing needs of the State and the redemption of debt to be very extensive unless the hon the Minister intends to put everything up for auction, something I do not think he intends to do. In the long term it can, in fact, have an effect. I do, however, pose the question: Will this privatization, in effect, promote job-creation in South Africa? The simple fact of the matter is that the private sector is geared to profits and will, of necessity, make use of the minimum number of job opportunities to achieve the maximum profit.

Sir, permit me a word or two, in the brief time at my disposal, about the Government’s proposed combatting of inflation. I want to ask the hon the Minister—if I could just have his attention— whether we are facing demand inflation or cost-push inflation at the present moment.

Cost-push inflation, of course.

I agree with the hon the Minister. [Interjections.] I want to issue a warning this afternoon. We are not faced with demand inflation, but with cost-push inflation. Since the hon the Minister has placed restrictions on a general salary increase for the coming year, we must tread lightly so as to ensure that the general growth in the economy is not jeopardized if, at the end of the day, South Africa’s overall wage and salary package increases more slowly than do prices, because that would inevitably result in the normal local demand for goods and services, which is so essential to stimulate our economy, being completely jeopardized.

The fact is that as a result of—I am not going to use the word freezing—restrictions on general salary increases announced this year, the value of the disposable income of officials in the Government sector will, of necessity, be decreased in real terms and consequently restrict their purchasing power. This must inevitably have an influence on growth in South Africa.

A matter which has not yet been debated since this House began to sit is the hon the State President’s announcement, in his opening address, that the earmarked levies for road construction and for the CEF, which are there and are going to stay, will no longer be earmarked in future. [Interjections.] That is what he said. This money is going to the Exchequer.

Nothing was said about what there is.

Oh, is that going to stay put?

You must go and read that again; then you will see.

The hon the Minister is therefore saying that in the future the levies are no longer going to be earmarked, in any event, but will be paid into the Exchequer unearmarked.

The levies.

Yes, the levies. They will no longer be levies and therefore cannot, in any way, be distinguished from indirect taxation any more.

That is quite correct.

Is the hon the Minister therefore going to make provision for those levies in his Budget in the future?

Yes.

I am glad to hear that, because in the past we have found the hon the Minister using those levies and funds for purposes for which they were not earmarked. Use was made of the CEF’s funds, with the hon the Minister’s approval, for other purposes.

It was done legally.

We can debate that at a later stage. Unfortunately my time is extremely limited. [Interjections.] I do not know whether hon members are going to be shouting “Hear, hear!” on 3 March 1988. We look forward to it. [Interjections.]

Having just spoken about 3 March, I briefly want to conclude. I was, for a few days, in the Standerton constituency where the people showed me a pamphlet distributed by the NP amongst its voters to promote its candidate. I saw, to my amazement, that the pamphlet was no longer titled Die Nasionalis, but had now become the Die Realis. It is no longer a National Party, but rather a Realistic Party. Has the governing party grown ashamed of the word Nationalist? If they have grown ashamed of that word, they should rightly be ashamed of using it. They ought rightly to be ashamed.

An interesting aspect of this little document, Die Realis, is that it contains not one single word about NP policy. Only on the very last page is there a very brief passage about the Group Areas Act. To this very day I still read without glasses, but in that passage the print is so small that one really cannot read what it says. Unfortunately I did not have a magnifying glass to read what it said. Why did the NP propagandists use such small print that the voters could not or should not read it? [Interjections.]

I want to warn the NP. Other speakers will elaborate further on our amendment. The NP has underestimated the intelligence and—a new term—the perceptions of the voters of South Africa. They no longer believe the NP. They no longer believe the NP, because the realities, as the man in the street experiences them, have caught up with the NP.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Barberton is developing a very interesting style. He emulates his leader well in his avoidance of questions and answers. [Interjections.] I congratulate him on this. He should be pleased about it. I want to put it to him that he makes vague statements, shies a little away from them and then returns, but one never hears definite, decisive answers to his own problems. [Interjections.]

Let me give a couple of examples. Let me ask him right at the outset, prompted by a good friend of mine here, why his party’s little newspaper’s name is the Patriot and not Die Konserwatiewe. [Interjections.] Come now, surely that is the hon member’s debating style. [Interjections.]

Let us go further. Let us quiz him about partition. Let us question one another realistically. After all, those hon members want to form an alternative government. Their leader waxed lyrical last week about the fact that they had won 22 seats in one province. Presumably the hon member for Barberton will agree with me that that was a sectarian view. [Interjections.] He will concede that they do not have one seat in Natal, the OFS or the Northern Cape, let alone the Cape. [Interjections.] If one wants to retain one’s perspective on this matter, can one really get excited about that? Can one get excited, like the hon member for Barberton, about three by-elections? [Interjections.] Let me tell those hon members something. Let us give them that scenario. Let us say they win all three by-elections. I want to make the prediction that the way they conduct their politics today, they could win three by-elections, but they would jeopardise the future of this country. The hon member for Barberton knows this, and the hon member for Brakpan knows it even better. [Interjections.]

Let us look at what the hon member for Barberton said today. Look at his amendment. He made certain statements, the first of which concerned the State Pension Fund. Let us again examine that hon member’s style by noting how he blamed those problems on the hon the Minister of Finance. Can the hon member for Barberton get this State Pension Fund to balance? Surely he knows what the circumstances are; he served on the standing committee. I challenge him to come up with the name of one international state scheme that balances.

I am mistaken. There is one such scheme in the world which works. Besides that, there is not a single state pension scheme which balances.

What I am trying to say is that he is aware of the facts. He is comprehensively and completely acquainted with the factual situation. Yet he disputed the matter here in this House in which we expect every member of Parliament to uphold the truth. What I have against him is the fact that although he is aware of the factual situation, he argues in a vague, evasive manner and blames the hon Ministers for things, while he is aware of the facts which contradict his own argument. [Interjections.] That is not nice. After all, he did not do that when he was in the NP; why does he do so now? [Interjections.]

Let us look at a few more of his arguments. I do not intend to reply to his speech, because the hon the Minister will do so. I would like to point out, however, that I think it is right that it at least be placed on record. I am referring to the advertisement of the hon the State President. The hon member for Barberton has presumably heard about inflation. He certainly knows what happens with inflation. I would like to put it to him that he is aware of the additional assistance which the Government has given agriculture in the meantime. He knows that after the hon the Minister’s Budget, a huge amount of additional assistance was made available to the agricultural industry.

How much was spent?

No wait, I am now asking him if he did not want that assistance to be made available. Would he have preferred the hon the Minister to stay within the limits of his original Budget? Surely that cannot be what he wants.

Let us look at just one more aspect of that hon member’s speech. Is he prepared to say today in this House—the public also want to know—what his party’s policy is in regard to privatisation? Are they in favour of it or not? [Interjections.]

But we have already said what our standpoint is. [Interjections.]

I would like to ask the hon member for Barberton, and I ask in all modesty…

You are being frightfully modest today!

Good, the hon member for Brakpan can mention that when it is his turn to speak. He is going to get a turn to speak, and then he can tell us what their policy is and whether or not they are going to support privatisation. The hon member for Barberton says they have in fact given the answer to this question. I can tell hon members how he is now going to argue. He is going to say they said yes, but in the argument he put forward today he said he was opposed to it because it was not going to create additional employment opportunities. That is why he questions it. This is an example of the ambiguous equivocation they always manifest. [Interjections.]

I wish to congratulate the hon the Minister of Finance on the Part Appropriation. It was actually a pleasant surprise, because the hon the Minister has in fact kept so well within the percentages that even the hon member for Barberton did not dare attack the Part Appropriation. I think that is compliment enough; I do not believe I need to expand on it. I would like, however, to submit the following idea to the hon the Minister: Is it really necessary to conduct this debate every year? I would like to say with great respect that we have already had a political debate, namely last week’s no-confidence debate. Now we are dealing with the Part Appropriation as an additional political debate. The question is whether the time has not come, since we are going through an anti-inflationary period in which we wish to encourage and increase productivity, that we should simply restrict the hon the Minister to certain norms and percentages to which he must adhere. Then, using the time we would have spent on the kind of debate we are having now, we will have created another opportunity for a higher level of debate.

I propose that if, having weighed up all the options, we want to conduct this as a political debate, we do so, but I nevertheless wish to ask whether, on the other hand, this debate has not become redundant, especially in our present situation.

As I have already said, I should like to congratulate the hon the Minister. I think the hon member for Barberton also did so by implication I think that, in the few years since he was entrusted with this portfolio, the hon the Minister of Finance has brought order and rhythm to our financial commitments. I would like to thank him for that and wish him good fortune, because politics without healthy finances is doomed to failure. In this regard I would like to refer to the hon the State President’s opening address which was, in my opinion, a guideline which really cannot be improved upon. As a result of the hon the State President’s speech, an advertisement appeared shortly afterwards in The Argus, which read:

I would like to express the hope and conviction that in a year or three, when the hon the State President’s call has been heeded, we will see this not only in the form of an advertisement but in the genuine co-operation of all sections of the population.

In contrast with this call, this policy of the NP, there is the Official Opposition sitting on the other side of the House. Perhaps it is as well that we examine this for a moment.

To begin with the least important, I quote from the column News Focus’.

I wish to state that the day that “movement” transforms dreams into reality, it can be transformed into a political party. I should like to wish him success.

Thank you.

On the other side we have the CP’s patriotism and lack of realism. Unfortunately it is a confused patriotism. In the Patriot of 29 January 1988 the following headline appears: “Junior amptenare verdien verhoging”. That is a good point, but we have to ask which junior officials deserve increases and up to what level. Why do only the officials on those levels deserve increases? other headlines read: “Aandele steeds gevaarlik” and “Anglo belê in Brasilië”. Allow me to quote from that report:

Is this a contribution to the current economic debate?

As far as the PFP is concerned, I should like to refer to the PFP-controlled Cape Town City Council. In The Argus of 29 January 1988 appeared a report with the headline “City councillors vote themselves a 61% rise”. At first glance that does not appear to be such a drastic increase. I should like to ask the PFP members, however— the hon member for Yeoville would be proving his astuteness if he could provide an answer— what is going on here:

Why is there a distinction? Why is there this inequity?

I am sure the hon member for Yeoville will not accept this, although it applies to the Cape. He will not put up with this Cape liberalism.

This debate does not concern the city council.

We are discussing parity and equal treatment. I am talking to those hon members of the PFP who are constantly out to attack this Government on the subject of unequal treatment and because we apparently cannot implement parity quickly enough.

There he sits! Your hon Minister is in charge of the management committees.

No, the Cape Town City Council itself made these decisions, and that difference in income is determined by them alone. I think it is the duty of the hon member for Yeoville to provide an answer and also to haul the Cape Town PFP members over the coals. I think he will do so. [Interjections.]

Returning to the speech made by the hon the State President, I should like to tell the hon the Minister that it has aroused expectations in a big way. The historical background is that the hon the State President has already launched initiatives on many occasions, but other parties did not pull their weight. I can mention the following as examples: Carlton, Good Hope and the Pretoria Residence. On all these occasions initiatives were launched by the hon the State President in a fantastic way—hon members will agree with me—but unfortunately there was a lack of cooperation from the private sector and other sectors and also a lack of co-ordination. The culmination of those initiatives of the past was not properly exploited by everyone, perhaps not by us either. If we look at the opportunities which arise from this fantastic speech, we will find that the greatest test lies in what we make of them.

I think we should take care to keep two facts in mind. Can we consistently sustain the expectations which have been created? Time will tell, but we will have to ensure in the days ahead that the initiatives are monitored and co-ordinated. Clarity regarding the programme is one of the major essentials which will be required in the next few months so that the initiative is not wasted once more.

I should like to ask the hon the Minister to appoint a director or co-ordinator—or whatever one wants to call the person—in order to coordinate the various inputs of all the departments. The appointment of such a person to assist the hon the Minister is absolutely essential. At this stage I want to congratulate the hon the Minister on his contribution in the team which was involved in the preparation of the hon the State President’s address.

I believe that the co-ordination of this programme through one central channel, body or person is essential and will be of absolutely cardinal importance in the next six months. I therefore wish to ask the hon the Minister to consider appointing or assigning such a body or person with the task of planning and specifying from day to day the rate at which this programme should be put into operation. The individual or body must also determine the nature and extent of this operation and adapt it from day to day, redetermine and keep up to date the vision or clarity in accordance with the circumstances and determine and keep up to date our perceptions— we all know that perceptions are sometimes more important than facts in this land of ours—so that even the hon member for Yeoville will not again have the opportunity to say we have not done our work. I know he is honest about that. [Interjections.]

The principle of the determination of priorities is absolutely essential, and I want to put it to the hon the Minister that I am concerned lest, in this euphoria of privatisation, we give the hon member for Barberton the chance one day to stand up and say he told us we were wrong. He will not be correct, in fact, but we might just make the mistake of becoming so obsessed by these large organisations like Eskom, NDC, Foskor and the others that we forget that that is not all that privatisation consists of.

Privatisation actually consists of the day-to-day things. I believe that privatisation must start with the decisions which the respective hon Ministers can make in departments with the stroke of a pen so that those larger developments which are to come do not have to wait for the smaller things which can be done in the meantime.

I want to make a few suggestions to the hon the Minister of Agriculture. Research bodies, for example, which cost us approximately R100 million a year, provide services. I am now referring to the aspect of services. Surely it is not right for those services to be provided free of charge every day to private business organisations which use them to make profits. I do not want to discuss this in full; I am just offering ideas.

We can also discuss the Education Departments. I am not referring to the teachers’ training college at Paarl now, but there are certainly institutions which are not run productively, and which should therefore be closed or rationalised. Surely decisions such as these do not have to wait for investigations.

My plea—I make this appeal with all the persuasiveness I can muster—is that the hon the Minister of Finance and the hon the State President be allowed to put these programmes into practice, and that they be in a position to rely on the support of all Ministers in all sectors. I wish to ask that this request receive the serious consideration of the hon the Minister of Finance.

Mr Speaker, I think the hon member for Vasco started off by joining in the by-election debate, and it may well be the case that we will very quickly have the same syndrome in this debate on the part appropriation that we had in the no-confidence debate— that economics will play a very small role in it. I am sorry that he fell into the trap. He tried to save himself from it, but I think we should try to discuss finance and economics because I really think that is what this debate is supposed to be about.

He touched on the question of salaries and I thought he was actually going to deal with the real issue of salaries. The issues of salaries now is very pertinent as far as this House and this Parliament are concerned, because we have told the public servants that they are not going to get their usual annual increase and that they will only get notch increases and there will be certain exceptions. I will deal with these in a moment, but the question arises—and this was put very pertinently by Housewives’ League to the hon the State President—whether we in Parliament should not set the example and set it very quickly to get the record absolutely clear that we cannot take increases ourselves while we ask other people to make sacrifices. That is the real issue. I thought the hon member for Vasco would deal with it. As he did not deal with it, I think the hon the Minister of Finance should deal with it in his reply and tell us that he has the hon the State President’s authority—because the letter was addressed to the hon the State President and we must not be presumptuous to answer his letters— to say that there will be no increases in salaries for MPs, because we cannot ask other people to make sacrifices and not be prepared to make them ourselves. He will have our support, certainly, in respect of that matter if he makes that announcement. I do not know if I can speak for the hon member for Vasco, but I think he will have to toe the line if that is what we will in fact do.

The hon the Minister of the Budget and Welfare agrees with you.

We also cannot support the amendment of the CP. Unfortunately it contains the classic racist trend which exists in almost everything they move nowadays and therefore we regret we cannot support it.

You see a racist behind every bush.

Yes, I see that hon member behind every bush and he certainly is a racist! That is for sure.

[Inaudible.]

He is the biggest racist in this whole House! [Interjections.] Let there be no misunderstanding: I am referring to nobody else except the hon member Mr Derby-Lewis. [Interjections.] I am referring to no one else, and no one else should try to claim that pride of place when it comes to racism. There is no one who can beat him. He will win any competition.

I want to come back to what we want to move. We would like to draw attention to three pertinent matters which are relevant to the position of South Africans today. I therefore want to move as a further amendment:

1. (1) to improve the assistance given to social pensioners;
2. (2) to deal with the critical situation developing in some of the country’s hospitals; and
3. (3) to ensure that more funds are made available to provide for the protection of the public against crime.”.

We have chosen three particular topics in order to highlight them, because in every case there exists a very serious situation which affects the ordinary South African.

Social pensioners need attention, and need it urgently in these times. The situation in the hospitals, which will be dealt with at some length by the hon member for Parktown, is in some cases assuming very serious proportions.

Thirdly, Sir, there is the question of crime. I have dealt with it previously. I will deal with it again. We want to take every occasion to highlight the problems which exist for ordinary people in relation to crime. The rich are able to buy their protection against crime. They can afford to appoint private security guards and to have alarm systems and burglar-proofing and every electronic means one can think of installed, but the ordinary South African needs protection against crime, and needs it urgently. That is why we want to highlight these matters at this stage.

You know, Sir, there comes a season for some of us, and for me in particular—the Passover. On the first night of the Passover it is customary for us to ask: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” There will be some hon members in this House who will remember that passage with me.

I want to ask the hon the Minister of Finance why this part appropriation be different from all other part appropriations. I find it remarkable, Sir, why this one should be different; why the part appropriation of 1988 should be different from that of 1987. In introducing the Part Appropriation Bill of 1987 the hon the Minister, instead of delivering a short little speech in a matter of a few minutes, delivered a long address. He dealt with the economy. He dealt with the need to give a detailed dissertation on the economic conditions in the country. He set out the whole economic history of 1986 and told us how he saw 1987. He then told us about looking ahead. Then he went on to tell us about GST, about the Public Service. What he told us about the public servants was very interesting, because he said to them: “If you vote right, after the election you will be given an increase.” [Interjections.] Yes, Sir, there was a whole long paragraph about that in his introductory speech. [Interjections.] He then went on continued to say he had to tell the social pensioners—that was on 9 February 1987—that they were going to get an increase on 1 October. The date today, Sir, is not so far beyond 9 February. Yet, Sir, this year the hon the Minister does not find it necessary to tell the social pensioners that they are going to receive an increase in October.

When I had the audacity—if I may use that word—to ask the hon the Minister why he had to be in such a hurry to announce this, you know what he replied, Sir? He said [Hansard: Assembly, 1987, col 626]:

So, Sir, last year it took him from February to October to work out the social pension that it was necessary to announce. This year he does not have to announce it in February in order to do it in October, presumably because the Ministers in charge of social pensions have suddenly learned how to do the job quickly. [Interjections.] That then, is the matter in relation to social pensioners.

Then, Sir, we also had an announcement about assistance to agriculture, an announcement about an early repayment of the loan levy, and also a speech about working wives. The hon the Minister also found it necessary to talk about savings levies, about savings, about new stock and about discounts on income tax. We had a long, long speech. Why then is this part appropriation different from other part appropriations? It is because this year there is no election, Sir. [Interjections.] Yes, this year there is no election. [Interjections.] This year the hon the Minister tells us nothing. He tells us absolutely nothing whatsoever. All he tells us is that he is asking us to vote a little money to see him through to the main Appropriation. He sits down and that is the end of the story as far as he is concerned. [Interjections.]

So, Sir, it is quite remarkable how styles change, how words change, how attacks change, and how suddenly one needs a long time for this poor old hon Minister in charge of pensions to do his job. Last year he needed eight months to work it out. This year he does not need eight months. He is only going to need seven months. He is getting on, Sir. He may one day need nine months, but that is another story altogether. [Interjections.]

It is remarkable, Sir, how everything changes when there is no election in the offing. I feel that the hon the Minister has missed a golden opportunity because he could have made use of this debate to tell us all about his famous five-year plan which is under cover. When are we going to hear about his five-year plan? Perhaps we will hear about it someday and all I hope is that the five years will not be up by the time we hear about it. As I say, the hon the Minister could have devoted some of his time to telling us about the five-year plan but this is such a secret that nobody appears to want to tell us anything about it. However, I hope that when the Budget is presented, the hon the Minister of Finance will lift the veil of secrecy slightly and tantalise us a little with some information about this famous five-year plan.

I also would have thought that he would have told us a little more about the privatisation plan. I feel that a golden opportunity is being missed to have a proper debate in regard to privatisation.

I should like to draw attention to a leading article in the Patriot which I find very interesting indeed. This appears in the issue of 12 February. I should like to quote from this editorial and, if the hon member Mr Derby-Lewis has a problem, I shall translate for him. The editorial is entitled “Die Uitverkopers” and reads, inter alia, as follows:

Let us test this statement somewhat. I should like to ask to whom the assets of South Africa belong. To whom does Eskom belong? To whom does Foscor belong? To who do the various bodies that are going to be privatised belong? [Interjections.]

The taxpayer.

Correct, the taxpayer, and the taxpayer is not White. The taxpayer is Black, White, Coloured and Indian. What an impertinence to seek to suggest that the assets of South Africa belong to the Whites only! That is racism in the extreme! [Interjections.] If we are going to have a debate on privatisation based on the fact that it is stated that these bodies are the assets of the Whites then we are looking for trouble in South Africa because the rest of the population are not going to accept the fact that these are assets of the Whites only.

This editorial from the Patriot is an interesting one but, unfortunately, I cannot quote it at length. I am sure hon members will be able to obtain copies of it because I understand they are available free of charge! [Interjections.] The writer talks about the economic crisis and how the money is going to be used. He then goes on to say:

I hope that is true! I say this because the fact remains that if we do not spend money in South Africa in order to ensure that the wage gaps are closed and that the level of social services is equalised there will be no stability in South Africa. If in fact this money is used in order to equalise social services we will actually be dealing with security expenditure for South Africa. This is the real issue we have to deal with and debate. I want to ask the hon the Minister of Finance when he enters the debate to tell us that this money is in fact going to be used for this expenditure which is socially so necessary. I hope he will tell us that it will not simply be a bookkeeping entry but that it will be used to ensure stability in South Africa by improving the social circumstances of all its people.

This editorial suggests further that all this money is going to go into the great conglomerates like Anglo American—that the days of the Hochenheimers are back again. We in these benches have said throughout that we do not look for ownership of the means of production by the State but by the people, the individuals in South Africa, the small people, the workers, the people who work in the industries.

Let us take the example of the United Kingdom. Not only were the workers allowed to participate but the small man was given preference. I want to see that happening in South Africa. To exchange a State monopoly for a private monopoly is not the answer, and I do not believe that is the intention of the hon the State President. If I read his speech correctly, he made it very clear that was not his intention.

For the sake of a few votes in three by-elections in Transvaal—on this matter I disagree with the hon member for Vasco; I attach great importance to Transvaal—the Government is now sowing seeds of dissension in regard to privatisation as well as seeds of racial conflict by saying these assets belong to Whites only, and could thereby ruin the whole of this privatisation proposal. I would like to see the hon the Minister enter this debate and state his own Government’s policy so that the various conflicting parties can see where they stand.

There is also, on the other hand, an attack from the left, the more radical side, and I am sorry to use that term. There is an endeavour to kill this thing on the basis that it will destroy the concept of socialism that should prevail in South Africa.

To find ourselves in a situation in which privatisation is attacked from the right by a type of pseudo “volks” socialism and from the left by another kind of misguided radical socialism is ridiculous. We have to get privatisation on the right road.

I should like to turn now to another matter which is relevant to this economic package, and that is the question of the anti-inflation campaign. I have read the hon the State President’s speech very carefully; a pamphlet was issued which has, I am sure, been given to all hon members. The heading above the section dealing with inflation is the same as that in the original speech. In that passage the following is very clearly stated:

It is clear, therefore that this step is regarded as an anti-inflationary measure. It is part of a package to cut State Expenditure and of a larger process intended to deal with inflation, because there is no doubt that excessive State expenditure is one of the causes of inflation. However, I then find the Director-General of Finance saying this is not an anti-inflationary policy. He said the following:

I believe it is anti-inflationary, and the only way one is going to sell it to public servants is by convincing them that they are contributing towards a fight against inflation which will make their money worth more. In that context, I think we need to sort out what the real reason is for not increasing the salaries of public servants.

I have another thing to say in relation to this policy. There is no doubt that there are sections of the Public Service which will have to receive increases. If certain public servants do not receive increases, we will firstly be guilty of treating them unfairly and secondly lose them. It is not enough, however, if the only people in South Africa seen to be making sacrifices in respect of salaries are public servants. I think that would not work.

The other point which I want to stress again is that we need a voluntary restraint in respect of prices, and this restraint must also be shown by the Government, particularly in regard to administered prices and tariffs. I would to hear from the hon the Minister whether he and the hon the State President are powerful enough in this Cabinet to see to it that tariffs do not go up when the estimates are presented.

If those go up, everybody else will use it as a reason why prices should go up. One has to exercise restraint in respect of these matters. One cannot expect other people to do things which one is not prepared to do oneself. The message that has to go out from this Parliament is that the Government is prepared to do what they ask other people to do and that is why they start with our own salaries. That is why they start with tariffs, that is why they start with administered prices and that is why they do not ask other people to make sacrifices they are not prepared to make themselves.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Yeoville really had a lot of difficulty attacking or criticizing what has emanated from the NP benches. He merely made three points which could be either complimentary or slightly critical, but particularly, as far as we are concerned, the amended motion is a basis on which to look at the underprivileged. They are therefore endorsing exactly what has been stressed in the hon the State President’s message. In fact, he has expressed his concern at exactly how we are going to look at that particular aspect. The interesting fact about his main criticism was his complaint about the briefness of the hon the Minister of Finance’s introductory speech on the Part Appropriation Bill [Interjections.] It is not so much a question of opportunity because obviously there will be more than enough time to look at that particular aspect at a later stage.

He also tried to make a little election capital as far as the speech in the previous year was concerned. The hon member knows, however, that this House went into recess and that quite some time had elapsed before it resumed after the election. So, needless to say, the hon Minister had to make a full and detailed statement at that time.

The hon member then concentrated more or less on the CP and the Patriot.

*I immediately reached for the Patriot and had a look at it. I myself found somewhat strange matters discussed there, for example the leading article “Volksbates uitverkoop”. I think the hon member for Barberton has some tremendous problems, specifically with these headlines, this fanfare in the Patriot since that first speech in the no-confidence debate.

In point of fact a few of the hon members of the CP hold moderate views, and with the exception of the hon member for Lichtenburg—he sounded the one single false note in regard to the question of privatisation—there was in fact a reasonable acceptance and a basis for understanding, with the necessary provisos, of course.

The CP’s own document, the Patriot, has now, as it were, repudiated these hon members. It will now be interesting to see who ultimately strums the guitar, because are we now dealing with a completely new set of applicable data?

In looking at this same Patriot, there is something that disturbs me a great deal more. There is a religious article. When one introduces religion, one is venturing onto very dangerous ground. The article to which I am referring is one entitled “Ons wag op U” in the religious column “Onder die koelteboom”. It is based on Psalm 90:13:

The article then elucidates the quotation as follows:

We all identify with that and regard this with a great deal of respect. But instead of stopping there, the following words are added:

I think we are owed an explanation here. Are there completely incorrect interpretations as far as this matter is concerned, or are we dealing here with a vain grasping at certain aspects? [Interjections.] The hon member spoke about Luther and Calvin. When one ventures onto that terrain, I certainly think one can obtain unclouded comments about these matters.

The economic reform package, as proposed by the hon the State President, has sent a ripple of excitement throughout the land. The seriousness with which the Government regards privatisation and deregulation is manifested in the hon the State President’s personal appeal that we should now all work together for the sake of South Africa.

The enthusiasm with which the experts—I emphasise the word “experts”—regard this matter is in evidence in all branches of the State, and we can see that there was considerable co-operation between the leaders of the business sector and the Government. Privatisation of the public sector is nothing new. The proof of success is already evident in many countries. It is particularly in evidence in Britain, where Mrs Thatcher has succeeded in harnassing the social and economic structure, has finally succeeded in wiping out increasing nationalisation and placing Britain’s economy on a sound footing. Also in countries in the East, for example Japan, Taiwan and Korea, deregulation and the promotion of small businesses have led to these countries becoming world leaders on the economic front.

The value-added tax, which is now going to come into operation to replace GST, is generally welcomed. It is expected that the collection ratio will be considerably higher than it was under the GST system. In fact, it could even prove to be 90% effective. Value-added tax, or VAT, will be levied throughout on the value added on the production and distribution chain. The ultimate yield is therefore a more definite one, and considerably more than in the case of GST. What is more, tax avoidance will be eliminated to a large extent because tax avoidance will only be possible if there were collusion and co-operation throughout the entire production and distribution chain. With the necessary controls, it will be relatively easy for competent inspectors to pinpoint such collusion.

Allow me to express a very clear opinion on this point. In order to exercise sufficient control, there will inevitably have to be more paperwork, and there will have to be more officials and inspectors to carry out this specific task. Hon members will find, however, that the ratio of salaries to the additional amounts collected will be a triflingly small one.

In this connection I also want to refer to the Margo Report. It also pinpointed the shortcoming, in the sense that from an inspection and control point of view both the Department of Inland Revenue and the Department of Customs and Excise were understaffed. Euphoria about value-added tax allowing the man in the street to have more money in his pocket than did GST must also be eliminated from the start. The tax rate may, in point of fact, be the same or slightly less than is levied in the case of GST at present, but the tax base is considerably broader and more defined in the case of value-added tax. It is anticipated that the end result of this will mean more tax for the State. If that is in fact to be the case, there are two remedies, ie either a decrease in the rate of value-added tax or alternatively a decrease in income tax.

In regard to the present issuing of certificates for the levying of GST, entrepreneurs with a turnover of less than R50 000 per year are not exempt from GST. When all is said and done the payments made by these people are done on an inclusive basis. I would want to see this principle applied in regard to value-added tax as well, because this could lead to a considerable saving in administration and labour which, I believe, is in accordance with Government policy.

Mr Chairman, it is a great privilege to speak after the hon member for Jeppe, and I should like to congratulate him. He spoke knowledgeably; he dealt with a wide range of subjects, and this proves that he is someone who understands the economy and the financial world.

The hon member for Barberton asked a number of questions about the Government Service Pension Fund this afternoon. Among other things he asked how the deficits were going to be made good. He also expressed serious concern about the fund. It is very important to say immediately that the Government is handling this pension fund in such a way that public servants need not expect any problems in the payment of their pensions. By his reflection on the handling of the Government Service Pension Fund, the hon member has caused a number of old people, civil pensioners in old age homes throughout the country, to be seriously concerned today. In fact, I think they are worried because he said there might be something wrong with the fund. It is important, therefore, for me to get up immediately and tell these old people, wherever they may be, that this side of the House is handling the fund in such a way that they need have no concern.

It is also interesting that, in his concern about the handling of the fund and the deficit in particular, the hon member for Barberton implied—and this is very important—that that side of the House, the Official Opposition, begrudged Government Service officials their pensions. [Interjections.] It is a sad day on which the hon member for Barberton could get up here and cast aspersions on the fund and the pensions of hard-working public servants, and—even worse—frighten old people. [Interjections.]

I am pleased that I can assure the public at large that there are no problems as far as their pensions are concerned. I am very grateful to be able to say that.

Mr Speaker, may I put a question to the hon the Minister?

There may be time to do so once I have finished.

I want to go further and say that there have been reports of a deficit of R10 billion in the Government Service Pension Fund, whereas previously it was R7,613 billion, as determined by the actuary. What is the difference between the latter figure and the R10 billion? The difference is that this would have been the interest if that deficit of R7,6 billion had been remedied immediately. That explains the figure of R10 billion. I mention that for the information of the hon member for Yeoville.

I set out the reasons for the shortage in the fund during the debate on my Vote last year, as well as during the meeting of the standing committee. On this occasion I want to elaborate on a few matters and emphasise that the department makes use of the services of an experienced actuary in the private sector.

After how many years?

In addition I want to emphasise that we also involve other financial experts, experts from the Department of Finance as well as the Commission for Administration.

There are a few aspects that I should like to deal with concerning the deficit in the fund. There has been a great deal of confusion about how one calculates an actuarial deficit in a pension fund and what this means. To provide greater clarity, I quote the actuary’s view of this from his report which was issued last year:

The average pension paid to a civil pensioner is R947 per month. The average gratuity is R56 000. These are facts.

That shows how big it is.

It is not all that large in size in all cases. The actuary’s report goes on to say:

The actuary found that the fund was funded in the amount of approximately 51%, and that is very important. Experts point out that although the financial principles and the benefits of pension funds should be on a sound basis, the principle of full funding in State-controlled pension funds is not applied in other leading countries. I mentioned the necessity of taking certain remedial steps last year.

†In the Government Gazette of 12 February 1988 I promulgated certain regulations which quite clearly state that an actuary shall value the assets and liabilities of the fund once every three years on a date determined by the Director-General and shall report to the Director-General on any surplus or deficit his investigation might reveal.

Why did you not do that before?

If the actuary certifies in such a report that there is a substantial surplus or a substantial deficit the Minister may, with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance, take such steps as he may deem necessary or expedient.

Why did you not do that before?

It is very important that the actuary was not requested during the previous valuation to make recommendations on how to address a deficit. He has been asked to make recommendations on how to address the deficit in this year’s investigation. The coming valuation will therefore be of the utmost importance, since the actuary has now been specifically instructed to make certain projections and recommendations in order to address the problem areas. I want to repeat the following important statement made by the actuary. Hon members must remember that he is a private actuary:

The evidence given before the standing committee by the Director-General of Finance is also of exceptional importance in this connection. He supported further investigations by the actuary to address the problem areas in the long term, and said the following in his evidence:

I want to repeat that in the short term the fund has no problems in fulfilling its obligations, and that the actuary has found that the rate at which contributions are being made to the fund is sufficient to sustain all obligations that have been established since 1 April 1985. The fact that the fund’s expenditure since its establishment in 1973 has amounted to only 43% of its income, and that for the financial year ending 31 March 1987 it was only 31,6%, speaks for itself.

The hon member for Yeoville will remember that he accused me of misleading the public when I quoted these figures last year. He obviously assumed that I regarded this as the solution to the problems in respect of the deficit in the fund. I know just as well as he does that this is not the case, and that the elimination of the deficit will have to be addressed in other ways in the long term.

Once again, therefore, I can assure the members of the fund and the pensioners—those poor old people—on the basis of facts that the fund has no cash flow problems.

The system of buying back service has been addressed and I have formulated the amended regulations in this connection in the Gazette of 21 September 1987. The amended formula that has been introduced will ensure that members who buy back service as from this date will compensate the fund fully for the benefits they will obtain by doing so. It is very important that further claims to the fund will undergo actuarial investigation before further benefits are granted.

I can also mention that the interdepartmental committee that I mentioned last year is shaping well. The committee has met frequently and the following aspects are being dealt with: The financial control of the fund, the principle of financing, the financing of differentiated benefits, the contribution rates and the administration. I am quite convinced, therefore, that the fund is moving in the right direction. We said we would take remedial steps, and we have done so. I want to say once again that those civil pensioners who await their cheques every month need have no concern. The fund’s cash flow is in good hands. The Government will provide in this respect. I am really sorry for the hon member for Barberton, who found it necessary to scare the poor old people here today. I can assure them that this is mere scare-mongering, which we have become used to. The old people need fear nothing while the NP is in power. [Interjections.]

Mr Speaker, one is left with the impression that the pressure of taxation on John Citizen is going to be decreased by the replacement of GST by the new VAT system. Nothing can be further from the truth, because this new tax is going to be recouped from the man in the street in the form of higher prices. The tax will therefore still be paid, but only in a different way.

But that is precisely what I said.

What disturbs us, however, is that the account for the financial situation, which had its origins in the practice of an abnormal redistribution of income, a practice the Government is still adopting, is now simply going to spiral down, in various ways, onto the taxpayer, and specifically in the form of a partial freezing of the salaries of public servants and—so it would appear to us—a net increase in indirect taxation following upon the announcement of the introduction of VAT and the consolidation of several statutory levies in the Revenue Account. We are saying that the only truly positive characteristic of the VAT system is that of cracking down on tax evasion. The present taxation measures, the effect of VAT and the present economic measures adopted by the Government, will jointly also have a fundamental effect on farming as a whole.

The VAT system, as provided for at present, means that a farmer will have to pay a 12% tax on the total value of his turnover as expansion tax. From that he can deduct the 12% taxation he has to pay on the purchase of his inputs. Many agricultural inputs, however, have an indirect marketing origin, for example labour and land. This will place a particularly heavy additional tax burden on the farmers. If that is what is envisaged, it is no use considering any further auxiliary measures. We shall undoubtedly have to receive proper submissions in this regard. Therefore the State will, at this early stage, have to spell out clearly whether it wants to place an additional tax burden on the farmers or not.

We must remember that it is very difficult for the farmer to define the effect of this taxation on labour and land. Although the 1987-88 production season was characterised by a good rainfall and high expectations for the summer grain crop, a devastating drought has had an extremely adverse effect on the crop. This factor, together with a decrease in the surface area under maize cultivation, has resulted in the expectation that the 1988 maize crop will only be sufficient for local consumption.

Although the present measures aimed at assisting agriculture are appreciated, and will have an influence on the recovery capability of agriculture in South Africa, it is a cause for concern that these measures cannot be fully utilised. Here we are speaking of the R400 million aid scheme. As far as I know only about R18 million has so far been paid out. In the light of the latest developments in agriculture, one must take a serious look at the employment of this finance. As a result of the fact that certain areas have perhaps had up to as many as seven successive crop failures, truly catastrophic conditions are developing.

To save those rural areas and communities from destruction, particularly with reference to their infrastructures, it is necessary for disaster areas to be identified and to be declared as such, as in the case of the livestock sector. The available money can then be pumped into those areas via the farmers—not as loans, but as money made available to keep farmers in production. In this way the preservation of the rural infrastructure will be assured. Thus one could guard against the depopulation of those disaster areas, even if the money must be forthcoming from other Votes, because we know, too, that farmers are our first permanent line of defence. And they are the ones who can fill the security vacuum in those areas more cheaply than long-term Defence Force involvement. Job opportunities are much cheaper in the rural areas than in the cities. In other words, provision must be made for the provision of job opportunities there. The provision of jobs can take place more cheaply in the rural areas, which in turn could have a positive effect on the country as a whole.

After all, agriculture has pre-eminently fulfilled its primary function of supplying food. My argument is therefore that we should more dutifully look after the farmers who fall by the wayside; farmers who have to carry on their farming enterprises at very great cost and subject to very high interest rates; people who have to produce under murderous inflationary conditions. Those people are being sequestrated. They are losing their good names as a result of conditions completely beyond their control, conditions which have had these tragic consequences.

The Government nevertheless has the same problem. We also realise that. What, however, is the Government doing? It is going to sell certain public bodies to the private sector, and that has far-reaching implications for the South African economy.

The most important negative effect, however, is going to be an increase in the political power of the conglomerates. The control, by a few large companies, of the South African economy is already without parallel in the Western World.

That is a stupid argument! [Interjections.]

Nowhere else is the economy of a country so dominated by a few companies. Sixteen large companies control 84,3% of the Stock Exchange, with Anglo American streets ahead with 53,6%, and we on this side of the House believe that big business has in fact, over the past year, become the strongest single pressure group forcing the Government increasingly towards the left. That is because these undertakings have managements with leftist, even far leftist, leanings. [Interjections.] As the economic power has grown, their political bargaining capability has become increasingly greater. [Interjections.]

Order!

The expected take-over of Escom, Iscor, Foskor, the Post Office and the SATS by the conglomerates will further increase their political power. They will end up in a position in which they can gradually force the country to surrender to a Black majority government. The announcement that certain important State institutions are to be privatised, now amounts to the virtual sell-out of the assets of the White people. There is now no longer any doubt about the shares of the large Government bodies, which will now be up for sale, being snapped up by the large conglomerates. The Government is trying to create the impression that its policy of privatisation is part of the promotion of the free-market system. All it is doing, however, is exchanging the most acceptable portion of State control over strategic undertakings for the formation of monopolies. This selling out of State bodies emphasises that truth once again. For the Whites there is no salvation, economic or otherwise, in NP government.

Mr Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to follow upon the hon member for Delmas. I must say, however, that I was as much confused in regard to where he came from as with his speech. I was trying to work out how we paid VAT on land but, before I could ascertain that, I found myself hearing all about the seventh crop failure. Before I was able to sort out the details regarding this seventh crop failure and what it had to do with this debate, I was in the middle of Black majority rule. I must say that I really could not follow the hon member’s speech. Just like everything else I have heard dealing with finance that emanates from that part of the House, those hon members seem to know the words but they do not know the tune! However, that is something to be expected from a party that is a party of the past. Finance is a matter for the future.

I listened to the speech of the hon member for Yeoville who knows a great deal about economics. He has many problems. He wanted to know how the hon the State President was going to bring down the inflation rate in our present economic environment, and he referred to the question of sanctions and disinvestment. The hon member wanted to known how we were going to solve the problem caused by the Black and Coloured people in this country seeing capitalism only against the background of capitalism against socialism. This is the problem I should like to deal with this afternoon.

The hon member for Yeoville also wanted to know what we were going to do in regard to pensions, hospitals and security matters, all matters requiring a great deal of money in any economy, and particularly, he said in an economy that is not doing better than a growth rate of 3% per annum. Our growth rate is 3% per annum because, as we all know, we are living in an environment of sanctions. We are experiencing a very poor economic climate because of disinvestment—more money is leaving the country than is coming in. My attitude in this regard is very specific. I think that Mr Jean-Jacques Rousseau is responsible for the economic climate in which we live. I believe he is partly responsible for the sanctions campaign against us. He thinks that a man is born simple, that he is born noble—that he is born a noble savage, and that the further he moves away from this, the more corrupt he becomes. Right up to the present the heros of the Western World have been simple, honest people who are very near to the soil. They are Jean-Jacques Rousseau people. They are Voortrekkers, cowboys, lumberjacks and fishermen, while the villains of the world are like those of us in this House—the politicians of the world. The villains are also the corrupt businessmen of the world, the tycoons, the Mafia people. Not a single candidate for the American presidency will win unless he has that simple, backwoodsman, near to the soil image.

Karl Marx played on the perception that the hon members of the CP do not like, namely that if man is corrupt and evil it is because he is a member of a corrupt and evil civilisation. All one has to do to make the world a better place is to change the system. If one can do this, one can change the individual. That is the background against which we have produced this part appropriation today.

What do we have in Africa? We have the perception of White capitalist oppressors and, on the other hand, we have the pure Black oppressed. This leaves us, the oppressors, with two sets of enemies throughout the world. The one set of enemies consists of the Christians of the world with their new liberation theology. They believe that these Black, oppressed people must be helped. In this regard I should like to quote Paul Young in his History of the Modern World where he says:

Castro went so far as to select four Catholic priests as Ministers in his communist state.

The second enemy that Jean-Jacques Rousseau has imposed upon us is the Marxist in Africa. Of over 50 states in Africa, I believe more than half are Marxist. They feel that all they have to do to make the Blacks purer and happier is to change the environment here.

After the war, one African state after another became Marxist and joined the United Nations.

In the United Nations they saw the perceived authors of all their miseries on the point of being attacked. We, the remaining White nations of Africa, were going to pay for all the things that the colonists had done. We were the White oppressors, and those African states launched a succession of sanctions movements and attempts at punishment.

In the 1950s, America could have got out of the UNO and saved us and the Western world from a great decline. They should have concentrated on Nato and left the UNO alone. The four remaining White states in Africa were Israel, Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa, and I do not have to remind hon members how many motions were adopted by the United Nations against those countries. South Africa now remains as the only White country in Africa.

Every year, when a sanctions motion against South Africa was debated by the United Nations, some major power vetoed it and we were saved, but in 1951 the Arab League found our how to circumvent the United Nations. They imposed their own sanctions against Israel and compiled their own blacklist of all businessmen that were prepared to do business with Israel. Does that not remind one of what is happening to us now? If hon members think the West is deserting us now, they should have been in Israel at the time. Scandalous things happened. For instance, Norwich Union had one Jewish director whom they sacked under the pressure of the Arabs who would not do business with them. America buckled and forced Israel to accept most of the Arab demands.

Sanctions were not only passed against countries with African connections, however. In 1948 Stalin imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia, which should have brought that country to its knees. The first country on this list of mine was the first to beat sanctions. Five years later, Stalin had to take Yugoslavia back on its own terms.

In 1950, America decided to impose sanctions against China and North Korea. At the time, 63% of China’s trade was with the Western world. After a while, 67% of its trade was conducted with communist countries and America’s sanctions had been defeated.

In 1960, America imposed sanctions against Cuba. Anybody who knows anything about that region will admit that Cuba is thriving.

In 1962, the first sanctions were imposed against us, and a total weapons embargo followed. The threat of sanctions has hung over us ever since, and they have been a perennial item on the agenda of the UNO. Every year that motion has been vetoed by one of the Western nations, but I wonder how long that will continue. In 1986 the Commonwealth, as hon members know, decided to impose their own sanctions against us.

If one understands the flawed premise of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Marx and the modern populist liberation theology of the Christian church, it is easy to understand the West’s rejection of our constitutional reforms, especially if we realise that all these opponents have used their propaganda to associate what they see as our racism with Hitler’s racism. It is a quantum leap, but it has been a successful one.

Why then the vindictive, vicious participation by Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and others? The answer is easy to find. The 1980 USA Santini report reported, in respect of 32 essential minerals, that America was then dependent on foreign sources for in excess of 50% of 24 of them.

Kissinger called South Africa the Sudan of the world’s minerals. Who competes with South Africa in supplying minerals to America and the world but Canada and Australia?

The experts in world politics are now talking about the resources war replacing the cold war. Our two greatest competitors in the resources war are Canada and Australia. Strange that they are at the forefront of those who are attacking us. We can also understand the attitude of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. They are next to the Russian Bear and we should sympathise with them on the high moral line they adopt against us.

Germany, Japan, Israel, Communist China and many other states in this world have been outcasts and pariahs of the family of nations. It has made them stronger and I suspect sanctions have made us stronger. Sanctions will force us to change but I doubt very much that the change will suit our adversaries very much. Neither a banana republic after sanctions nor a reformed strong coalition of middle of the road minority groups will suit the purposes of this world.

The budget we have here reflects an economy that is holding its own against sanctions and disinvestment. This is our problem, the long and hard road that we will be forced to go. All the things the PFP wants, would be easily achieved if everybody was investing money with us, but they are not. We will have to do it on our own. We will build our own infrastructure, and we will build our own technology.

I would like to finish with what Margaret Doxey says in her book, Economic Sanctions and International Enforcement:

Mr Speaker, I find it somewhat difficult to respond to anything specific that has been raised by the hon member for Germiston. I have always known and accepted that we do have enemies but, after listening to the hon member this afternoon, I wonder whether we have any friends left! In fact, there are very few who have not been attacked in one way or another this afternoon. Any inclination, however, towards a withdrawing into a laager mentality would not be in the interests of our country.

Hon members on these benches have accepted the hon the State President’s economic package he presented last week, but with certain notes of caution. We support steps that will increase productivity and stimulate productive forces in South Africa, and I believe that nobody in this House needs to be persuaded of the pressures that a burgeoning and developing population will place on a stagnant economy.

Political and economic aspirations cannot be met by a strategy of co-option, coercion and repression. All South Africans have to be willing partners in our joint struggle for economic survival and to make that package work.

Firstly, we have to have a political dispensation which is acceptable to all. Secondly, every vestige of discriminatory legislation has to be removed enabling all to have equal access to opportunities.

Thirdly, flowing from this, Blacks must be allowed to participate fully in the free market system. How do we ensure Black participation and co-operation so as to achieve and maintain that vitally needed economic progress? Together with Government and capital, they are the third leg of a partnership. I believe the hon the State President’s reform package has overlooked this vital element.

During forty years of NP rule, much has been done to ensure that Blacks have not participated in the system. Members of the PFP have focused attention on discriminatory policies which have largely contributed to the economic ills which we now face as well as on legislation which has fostered White economic advancement at the expense of Blacks; which has created and continues to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Many Blacks now associate the freemarket system and capitalism with oppression and apartheid. They have been denied participation in the economy, in business, and in everything in the name of White civilisation, of capitalism and now of the freemarket system. Can we therefore really be surprised that Blacks now look at an alternative economic system, namely socialism, in preference to the present economic order?

The Government has failed to recognise this fundamental truth, or if they do recognise it, they fail to remedy it. They do not recognise that in building for the future we have to acknowledge and compensate for the sins of the present and the past. Through apartheid, both political and economic, we are systematically destroying what remains of goodwill and mutual understanding, and little comfort is gained from a so-called reform package which merely rights some of the wrongs which they themselves have legislated.

Political and economic reform must go hand in hand, and a go-slow on political reform now may well commit the economic reform package to the rubbish heap of failed initiatives. We cannot afford another failure. There is a host of legislation which inhibits Black economic advancement, and I would single out the group areas legislation as being one example.

In the Cape Peninsula there is no land for Black housing outside of the established townships on the outer perimeters of this city, yet many Blacks are only able to find employment in White areas situated long distances from where they may legally live. The result is illegal squatting in areas such as Noordhoek, Fish Hoek, Hout Bay and Kraaifontein, to name but a few.

I cite the example of Noordhoek. Those people who were moved in December last year and now live in tents in Khayelitsha have to spend R7,40 a day on transport back to the place where they have jobs, and many of them earn R15 per day in those jobs. That means that half of their daily earnings now has to be spent on transport. The hon member for Simon’s Town was quoted as saying: “If the White residents of Noordhoek want ‘cheap labour’ they should club together to provide transport to and from the area.” I should like to ask him whether anything has been done in this regard, or have the Noordhoek squatters merely joined the ranks of the many unemployed in the desolate sands of Khayelitsha? Has he or his party done anything to alleviate the plight of these people?

The control of squatting is not the issue. The issue is that the Government has failed to scrap the Group Areas Act. At the very least they should ensure that all people are able to live reasonably close to their place of work. I would request the hon Minister concerned to deal with this matter, particularly in the Cape Peninsula where this is a matter of urgency.

There is a host of other legislation which has to be withdrawn as a matter of urgency if we are going to encourage Blacks to join us in this economic programme. There are discretionary powers which deal with the licensing of Blacks in business. In some areas written permission is required for companies controlled by Blacks to obtain land. There are other regulations pertaining to Black business, for example, a Black holder of a general dealer’s licence is still prohibited in certain areas from holding other licences within 20 kilometres from his business. Trading sites in Black townships are not freely available and are not part of an open market system. Discretionary power is administratively exercised in allocating these sites. There is even legislation existing today which prohibits a Black trader from sharing his profits unless he obtains written authority to do so.

It is therefore absolutely untrue to say that Black businessmen today have equal opportunities with Whites in the economic system. This Government has placed an administrative stranglehold around him; his entrepreneurial talents are throttled and will never be allowed to see the light of day. Little wonder that, to our great cost, he has grown to despise the system of free enterprise. Today we need to call on him to participate with us in the struggle to deal with the economic woes besetting our country. I would call on the Government to do everything within their power to restore goodwill by removing the last vestige of racial legislation which impedes Black economic progress. Failure to do so will once again result in a failed economic initiative, and the potential cost of such failure is horrific.

In the remaining short while available to me I would like to deal with another matter. I would like to refer to a report in the Cape Times of today dealing with yet another businessman with what appears to be a shady background, who has played a significant role on the South African business scene. There have been a few of late, and I refer to Mr Giovanni Ricci and also to Mr Kalmanovitz who was recently involved in the failed coup disaster in Bophuthatswana. Now we have a Mr Vito Roberto Palazzolo, recently in Lugano prison in Switzerland where he was serving a five and a half year sentence for his role as an accomplice in one of the world’s largest heroin smuggling rings recently involved in a R56 million heroin smuggling operation. He was also a former business partner of the hon member for East London City. According to the report which I have referred to they met in a Swiss prison, and the hon member is alleged to have assisted in arranging for this gentleman to enter South Africa. This report is most disturbing, and I believe the public have a right to know what is actually going on in this case. I believe the hon member concerned or the hon the Minister should throw some light on this situation.

Order! The hon member was, of course, not implying that they met as inmates of the Swiss prison!!

Mr Chairman, I found the speech of the hon member for Pinelands, who has just sat down, most discouraging. He stood up and said that he supported the initiative of the hon the State President and then, having said that, he strolled on down memory lane with the same old nonsense that we have been hearing trotted out for the past 40 years, the same absolute twaddle—if I may say so—that has brought that party nowhere and will take this country nowhere. It added nothing to the sum total of human knowledge. [Interjections.]

The hon member says we must start dealing with the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Has he not looked at budgets over the past few years? Has he not seen that, for example, Health and Welfare’s allocation from the central Budget rose from 11,7% in 1975-76 to a budgeted 17,8% in 1986-87, a growth of 52%, the second largest item on the Budget; that the education budget Education grew from 13,4% in 1975-76 to 19,1% in 1987-88, an increase of 20%; and that Black education has increased by 40%? Is that hon member aware …

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Deputy Minister a question?

No, I am not prepared to take a question now.

Is that hon member not aware of the training programmes? He must spend less time on the campus of the university and more time in his constituency and adjacent areas. I advise that young hon member to go and visit some of the training programmes centres, just on the border of his constituency, where he will see tens of thousands of people being trained with tremendous love and application in order for them to enter the economy. [Interjections.] The hon member should visit the Small Business Development Corporation and see the kind of things that those people are doing. He must go and look at what is happening with regard to some of the policies of inclusion in terms of inward industrialisation and urbanisation. He must look at what is happening on the housing front. That hon member says we should do something about housing. Does he not remember that it was only a year ago that the hon the State President again came with a joint enterprise with the private sector and launched the South African Housing Trust with an amount of R400 million of State funds. The private sector has joined in this endeavour. The Housing Trust has already built 20 000 houses in the first year, and there are another 10 000 serviced plots that have been made available for housing. There are tens of thousands more in the pipeline. Does that hon member not know that?

He says we must really help people to come into the economy. Is he not aware of the fact that the whole policy of deregulation—to which the hon the State President also alluded—is fundamentally founded upon the fact that we want to build a bigger economy? We want to draw people into the economy and remove obstructions, and that is why we have altered the legislation in this country. That is also why we opened the urban areas in South Africa. Is that hon member blind …

Get rid of discrimination!

Oh, discrimination, discrimination! That kind of contribution is passé. It is a thing of the past; it is yesterday’s politics. The only difference between that hon member and the hon member for Delmas who spoke before him is that he is yesterday’s man and the hon member for Delmas is the day before yesterday’s man. [Interjections.] That is the only difference between them.

He says there is no land for Blacks. Does he not know what the Government is doing to try to get land? He says everybody must live near his place of work. Does the hon member not know what the geography of the Cape Peninsula looks like? Can he tell me where in the urban area we could find room for a quarter of a million people instead of at Khayelitsha? Can he tell me where that could have been done? Can he tell me where in this urban area we should have put Mitchell’s Plain? Perhaps at Sandy Bay! [Interjections.] Is the hon member not aware of what is going on at Blue Downs, of the massive industrial areas being opened and of the Government’s programmes? That hon member must really open his eyes. He has been here in this House for a year and I say to him: Come back to South Africa; look at your country and understand your own country; do not go along with people hurling obscenities at our Government from the campuses of our universities, those people who are agents provocateurs for foreign governments and make no contribution whatsoever to our country.

The hon the State President of South Africa launched this country upon a great enterprise. It is not a party political enterprise. It is a national enterprise which seeks to improve the economic life of this country so that all of the other benefits can flow to this country, including constitutional benefits.

The hon member for Yeoville made a good speech. The hon member for Yeoville usually makes good speeches and I am not going to concentrate on the things with which I agree. However, we disagree on a number of things. He asked why this Part Appropriation was different from other part appropriations. What makes the difference?

No election!

What is different, is the hon the State President’s speech.

The hon the State President makes a speech every year.

The whole rhythm of this Parliament is different and the hon member knows that. He himself said, quite justifiably, that when the hon the State President opened Parliament as he did and when he made the whole economic situation of our country including the financial and economic health of our country central to his speech, that changed the whole rhythm of Parliament. That is why this debate is different from any previous debate.

You are not suggesting there is nothing left to say?

No, I am suggesting that the hon member must be patient. Next week we shall discuss the Additional Appropriation and after that the Post Office Budget. Then we shall discuss the SATS Budget and then the Budget of the hon the Minister of Finance. That hon member can judge us by our deeds, our intentions and our ability to administer prices or not to administer prices. He can judge us then. However, this hon Minister does not raise points that are unnecessary. He will say what needs to be said at the appropriate time.

What is different is that the economy has been made central to the whole South African debate. The fact is that we have put an emphasis upon economic management. I think the hon member for Yeoville likes that. We have not come along with a piecemeal programme, but with a comprehensive package. It is a coherent process which will take a long time. It will not only take a year to complete. Hopefully within a year we shall see important trends to encourage us further along the road but it is not a quick fix. The hon the State President did not embark South Africa upon any quick fix as I think the hon member knows. Discipline has returned and will stay in regard to Government spending.

May I ask the hon the Deputy Minister whether he himself has not made speeches on privatisation, tax reform and a whole variety of things since the hon the State President’s speech, so that we actually should be conducting an ongoing debate and not be quiet on these subjects?

I do not want to argue with the hon member, because he is absolutely right. People come along and tell us to reduce taxation, but one cannot have big government and low taxation and therefore the Government has to withdraw. If one wants a lower tax burden one must not only have a more equitable system, but also a smaller government. That is why we have embarked upon a policy of privatisation. That is why the Government has embarked upon a process of stronger and tougher economic management and fiscal discipline.

The hon member for Germiston mentioned that if we want to grow and if we are short of capital, we must seek to use more productively the capital that we have available. The capital that we have available is most productive in the hands of the private sector. That is why the Government wishes to withdraw and does not want to crowd out the private sector but wants to encourage the disciplines of the market into those State enterprises by a policy of privatisation.

The portents are good. All of the elements in the economy show the possibility of healthy growth at the moment and that indicates that sound economic progress is taking place and is possible further on. Confidence has returned to our producers. We can see that big investments are taking place in increased productive capacity, in inventories and in stocks. Southbound cargo ships are very heavily booked which means that new productive capacity is on its way to us. We only have to look at bank credits and some of the turn-overs in some of the locomotives of our economy like the white goods industry and the motorcar industry to see the return of consumer confidence.

The crops look good and that will have a positive effect upon the balance of payments and the rural agricultural economy. It will also stop this massive flow to the cities from some of the depressed agricultural areas. It will take some of the heat off some of the cities and can have a beneficial effect on our country.

We see that the economy is charging ahead. In the last quarter of last year we experienced an economic growth of 5%. That was very encouraging. The money supply is under control. It is very important to note that the crack in the stock market that followed the crack in the American stock market on 18 and 19 October 1987 has not had an effect on the real economy in South Africa. Confidence has remained, the real economy is strong, profits are good and there is a rising in confidence. I do hope that the private sector will co-operate with the Government and I am sure they will. Every indication that I have had in the many conversations I have had with leaders of the private sector and representatives of private sector organisations shows me that the private sector will indeed take the hand of the Government sector and show restraint in prices and wages so that we can get the maximum benefit from this important and exciting enterprise upon which the hon the State President has embarked South Africa.

Mr Chairman, I hope the hon the Deputy Minister will pardon me if I do not react to him, because there is another aspect I should like to touch upon here this afternoon with reference to a portion of the amendment moved by the hon member for Barberton in which he insinuated that the Government lacked a political plan for South Africa.

Last week we ranged widely over the political sphere. The opening address of the hon the State President was constantly being dealt with, avoided or utilised in a personal political context. This afternoon I should like to try to summarise NP policy and strategy for the future, both politically and economically, because the two have a great deal to do with each other and are very closely interwoven.

Dr Anton Rupert once said:

No one can differ with this. The question is simply where do we place the emphasis when we say this, and in what ways and with what priorities are we trying to achieve this objective. The NP’s policy and priorities find substance in the preamble to our Constitution, in which we spell out our national priorities very clearly. These are real principles, and this afternoon I want to say that it is my opinion that we shall survive in South Africa and continue to exist meaningfully in this country when we are one day able to distinguish between customs and traditions on the one hand, and deal with them on a different level, and the real principles which are important to our survival on the other, and then proceed to deal with them.

I think that if one wants to understand the NP philosophy for the future, one will have to reexamine the national priorities in the preamble to the Constitution and reassess them. All of us ought to know what they are. I shall refer to them very quickly.

In the first place there is the upholding of Christian values and norms. It is very easy to say that we all stand for these things and fight for them, but if one pursues a policy in this country which will lead to an eventual communist take-over, as a result of a short-sighted policy, and if one thinks that one can force upon other people what one stands for at the moment in the short term with a defence force, one is not in future going to be able to uphold this principle, which everyone advocates. Sir, I can continue with the priorities on this list. I do not want to detract from these principles by glossing over them, but I am constrained to do so because of a lack of time.

The second principle is concerned with the inviolability of our country and with ensuring the freedom, viz the sovereignty, of our country. There are the following principles as well: The independence of our judiciary, the preservation of law and order, the promotion of the happiness, spiritual and physical welfare of everyone, respect for the humanity, life, freedom and property of everyone, to respect, promote and protect the self-determination of population groups and people and to promote private enterprise and effective competition.

I am mentioning these things specifically because I want to indicate in that way to what extent the future objectives and strategies one wants to adopt are interwoven. On the one hand, for example, we mention Christian values, and on the other hand mention is made of private enterprise and the question of the preservation of human dignity in this country. In this way these matters are interwoven, and to me this represents the entire spirit of NP policy. I sincerely hope that when we examine these issues, the hon member for Barberton and the Official Opposition will not say again that the NP lacks a policy and that it is unable to implement it.

These matters are of critical importance for the future. We cannot omit any of them, because South Africa cannot then be the same in future. Consequently our solution does not lie in simple theories, but we may very clearly discern from this that the solution lies in a diversity of plans and theories for the future. The NP states very clearly—let everyone know this—that these principles in the preamble to the Constitution are not negotiable in future. This is a policy statement by this side of the House: The principles in the preamble to the Constitution are not negotiable.

They have everything to do with a meaningful, fair and long-term strategy for the survival of the whole of South Africa. This afternoon I want to issue a warning and say that every political party that tries to simplify the problems and complexity of South Africa, that goes to the voters with simple theories which may sound good, without stating the full consequences and accepting all the realities of the complexity of this country, will stand indicted by future generations of this country. [Interjections.]

Next I want to indicate, if these are our national priorities, how we are going to implement them in practice. I want to repeat that hon members of the Official Opposition must please listen to this, so that they, too, may know in future what the NP’s policy really entails. Since last week it has happened repeatedly that when an hon member on this side of the House discussed reform, there were cries from the opposite side of: “What is reform?” Reform does not only take place in the political sphere. It takes place in regard to a diversity of aspects, in regard to a diversity of policies or power bases—call it what you will—to which we on this side of the House are simultaneously giving attention in order to ensure that we go forward to meet the future of this country in a balanced way.

The first power base is probably the political power base. We are actively engaged—we can already show the results of this—in broadening democracy in South Africa. Not only do we state this in our policy documents; we are also implementing it in practice. Then, too, it is also important that this is done at a rate which can be handled by this country and its people. I do not want to elaborate on this point for long. It is a point well known to hon members. I just want to refer to the success we have already achieved, for example with the establishment of local authorities in Black, Coloured and other communities in this country.

Surely that is the foundation on which we are going to build these new political structures in future. Regional services councils have already been put into operation. Hon members would do well to have a look at how the regional services council are functioning in Bloemfontein. Both Whites as well as non-Whites are already deriving benefit from those structures, and are doing so on the basis on which we have always stated—the basis of no domination of one group by another.

On the basis of these same guidelines we shall also assimilate the Black communities and groups in this country to the future.

Next there is the socio-economic power base, which goes hand in hand with this political power base. To my mind it stands on two legs. For the future it is consequently important that we do not stand on one thin leg and one fat one. The two important aspects, or legs, of this socio-economic power base are in the first place the essential need to meet the basic necessities of life of everyone in this country. That is NP policy. Therefore the hon member for Barberton must not maintain that the NP lacks a policy or clarity in regard to the future. I am pleased to see that he is back in his seat.

When I talk about basic necessities of life, surely this involves aspects such as housing, education, training, health services, the provision of employment and a better standard of life for all the inhabitants of this country. If there is disparity at present in this respect, surely it is the duty of a responsibility government to rectify these proportions with a view to the future.

The other leg is that of economic reform. That is precisely what the Government is engaged in at the moment. I do not want to elaborate on this at any length. Enough has already been said about it in this House.

Furthermore there is also the security force and military base. Last year the hon members of the Official Opposition accompanied us on a visit to the border. For us, who did our service there approximately 10 or 12 years ago, it was wonderful to be there again and to see what fantastic progress had since been made in regard to incorporating the territorial force of South West Africa into the defence set-up in that territory. I am referring to this one aspect only because what I mean by it is that surely this is also reform. Surely this is also progress which has been made on that power base, reform which can cause us to go forward with great pride. I think that far too little recognition is given to this matter in this country, precisely because things are going so well there. Too little recognition is displayed for what is really being done there by the Defence Force and by all the other departments concerned.

The final base I want to refer to is the constitutional base. Here we are dealing with the expansion of our Western relations abroad. When a country’s economy is 60% dependent on the outside world, one cannot but ensure that one maintains sound relations with the outside world. Of course the same also applies to our relations with Africa.

†I have a copy here of a speech that was delivered by Mr Paul Johnson last year. Mr Johnson is a well-known British author. This particular speech was delivered in Johannesburg at the opening ceremony of the East Daggafontein Goldmine in October 1987. Addressing his audience on the future of South Africa Mr Johnson stated a few relevant aspects to illustrate why South Africa could be viewed as a typical African country.

There are other aspects, too, which illustrate the opposite!

Yes, there are aspects which show South Africa not to be a typical African country. What is important, however, is that we should take note of the fact that we are part of Africa. We cannot divorce ourselves from this fact. We must always bear that in mind.

*Once I have finished sketching these power bases, I just want to say that the NP is, with these power bases, these strategies, creating a new vision for the future in this country for all its inhabitants. Surely there is no alternative to orderliness and security. Surely there is in future no alternative to a political say without domination of the one by the other. Surely there is no alternative, so that everyone can have a fair and just dispensation in this country in future. Surely there is no alternative, so that everyone will have the right to deal with their own affairs. Surely there is no alternative according to which we will be able to enable everyone in this country to have economic prosperity and free participation.

I want to conclude by saying that if we examine the short term, after the broad guidelines have been spelt out, it becomes very clear that if I am asked what the short-term strategies are which this country is going to apply over the next few years, I must reply that to my mind the main issue is most certainly the implementation of these aspects, but also the marketing of the few ideas to certain people and bodies in this country and in our part of the world.

The first matter which the Government will continue to market is that we shall have to try to persuade the leaders of all population groups that they will have to act in a sober and realistic way towards the Republic and its people and realities. Whether we are going to succeed in doing this in White politics, I do not know, but we shall concentrate on the other population groups and their leaders. We shall continue to create structures, we shall continue to issue the invitations, we shall continue to present a better dispensation for all people in this country, but—I want to say this with all the responsibility at my command— these other leaders in this country also have a responsibility towards South Africa and its people. It is not right that we should constantly be placed in the dock as if we were not prepared to bring about or encourage reform in this country.

At the end of last year I read in a newspaper that Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi said 1987 had been a year of lost chances and opportunities. The question which immediately occurred to me was whether it would have been a year of lost chances and opportunities if he had adopted a different attitude in this country.

I read in Sunday’s Rapport that Dr Philip Nel of Stellenbosch said that at this stage Black power, to a certain extent held reform in its hand. This could probably be true, depending on, from what angle one views the matter, but the appeal we shall have to make in the short term, and will have to continue to make, is to tell the leaders of Southern Africa not to continue to sit on two stools, to ignore the confrontation advice they receive and to act in the interests of South Africa and its people.

We shall also have to keep on selling the concept of “together we achieve more”; we shall not stop doing that. Opinion polls indicate that 74% of the Black community would rather share power than have a completely Black government in this country. [Interjections.] We shall continue with this, as well as with the maintenance of civilised norms and values.

There is another aspect as well, and with that I should like to conclude. It is that we shall also try to market another concept in this country, and that is that over the years the Whites in South Africa had been the catalyst that have kept this country—the entire functioning of this country— going. The Afrikaner as such has made an enormous contribution in order to lead to where we stand here today. I just want to say that if the Afrikaner, by means of what the Official Opposition advocates here today, its going to hive off from South Africa by withdrawing into a laager and by withdrawing from this chemical process, the Afrikaner would be doing South Africa the greatest disservice ever, and we shall continue to say this to the White voters as well.

I also want to tell the Official Opposition that the final yardstick against which they can test the policy of this side of the House is always what is in the interests of South Africa and not what is in the interests of winning a by-election or a few additional votes. What is in the interests of this country and its people is the final culmination of NP policy.

Mr Chairman, in the nature of things it is a pleasure for me to speak after the hon member for Winburg. I should like to associate myself with the point with which he concluded, namely that the determination of policies is probably one of the most important factors in the interests of South Africa. I should also like to identify myself with his association of constitutional matters with the economy as probably being one of the most important elements in the determination of the course which any government ought to adopt.

During the past week I had the privilege of holding discussions with certain academics and of asking them what, in their opinion, was the greatest single problem in South Africa, and the reply was …

The CP!

No, but we shall get round to them. The greatest single factor was the economy. I find it significant that when sacrifices have to be called for in respect of the economy, which is really the greatest single problem in South Africa, we hear discordant notes from the opposite side of the House, discordant notes which one really finds perturbing. One wonders sometimes whether they still join in singing, in the words of our national anthem: At thy call we shall not falter, firm and steadfast we shall stand. One also wonders, when they hesitate to drink a toast to the hon the State President, whether they still subscribe with commitment to that part of our national anthem.

I must, alas, came back to the connection between the Official Opposition and the AWB. [Interjections.] Those hon members can relax; I want to do so in economic terms.

Are you a member of the Broederbond?

Does that hon member participate in the Aksie Toekomsgesprek?

No! [Interjections.]

When one examines the non-official Official Opposition, namely the AWB, the extra-parliamentary wing of the CP, one encounters inter alia their economic policy. One frequently wonders whether the AWB was really the brainchild of Mr Eugéne Terre’Blanche. I am not all that certain about that. As long ago as April 1940, almost 50 years ago, a document entitled “Die Boererepubliek” appeared. I believe that that was what gave rise to the development of old and obsolete ideas which were also, admittedly, adopted by three other national-socialist orientated groups, viz the Ossewa-Brandwag, the Grey Shirts and the New Order.

Not only was there the Grey Shirts, but also the Brown Shirts, Black Shirts and—alas—the Orange Shirts. I now ask myself whether the AWB is not engaged in misleading tactics. Are they not perhaps the Khaki Shirts? Are the Khaki Shirts not perhaps a revival of the old colonialism under a misleading guise, or is it perhaps merely a continuation of shirt ideology? Let us leave it at that, because I should like to refer to the economic policy of this organisation, which supposedly comprises such a large proportion of the Official Opposition.

Everyone is probably entitled to his own ideas. I have no objection to the existence of the AWB or the connection between the CP and the AWB, but then let us face the facts squarely and not adopt an emotional, but a rational, and reasonable approach. Let us quite simply weigh up their economic policy against the normal policy. I want to quote from AWB pamphlets. This deals with the economy. I shall quote only a few elements from these pamphlets:

I emphasise the word “eis”—

One of the aspirations of the AWB is the following:

As I have already said, this is out and out and blatantly a form of socialism, or national socialism as it was once called.

Just look at the hysterical reaction we had on the part of the CP, and more specifically from the hon member for Lichtenburg, who is not in this House today, namely his hysterical reaction to the sale of national assets.

This entire reaction to the so-called doing away with what is unique to the Afrikaner people, by way of privatisation, I can understand. I say once again that I have no objection to it, and I want to explain it on the basis of the connection between the CP and what is probably the largest component of the Official Opposition, namely the AWB.

Approximately 500 000 or 600 000 members vote for the CP; we can make our own calculations. Let us leave the figures out of it now, apart from the approximately 100 000 members who, as one of the hon members said by way of an interjection, perhaps voted for the NP. We know there are AWB members who voted for the NP. [Interjections.] Let us accept that the hon member was correct. These are in any event people who will come to their senses in due course.

Let us return to the question of privatisation. The whole question of the reaction of the Official Opposition to privatisation is quite simply situated in the fact that it will be so much more difficult to bring about the disengagement once again. If there are so many of these privatised State corporations, socialisation will be so much more difficult.

Consequently the Official Opposition certainly owes it to this House to furnish us with a clear indication of what its real economic policy is. Is it the economic policy as spelt out by leading members of the AWB, or is it the economic policy with which they are now speculating? It is high time we received a decisive answer in this connection.

Mr Chairman, it is a pleasure for me to speak after the hon member for Bloemfontein North, and I should like to associate myself with everything he said. I do no want to elaborate on it; I want to come back to the opening address of the hon the State President.

Before I come to that I want to say a few words about the National Democratic Movement. The hon members must pardon me if I speak in their absence this afternoon, because I observe that they have left the Chamber. I read their manifesto with great interest when it appeared recently. The manifesto is good and clear; the part that is good is not clear, and the part that is clear is not good!

I quote their mission from their manifesto:

If one wanted to see what such a political order is going to look like, on the basis of this manifesto, one finds it beautifully summarized by the contemporary German philosopher, Ernst Jünger. He recently commented as follows on this type of democracy:

There are indeed better ways than that of committing suicide. I have nothing further to say about the movement.

I should like to come back to the address made by the hon the State President at the opening of Parliament on 5 February this year. It was a speech which announced extremely important economic policy adjustments, adjustments which, seen as a packet, will bring about large scale economic reform. Business leaders as well as Press commentators over a very wide front not only welcomed the address of the hon the State President, but also described it with great enthusiasm as one of the most important policy adjustments in regard to economic reform this Government has ever announced. It is a course adjustment which testifies to courage and daring, one which is going to require sacrifices in the short term, sacrifices which are not going to be popular, but the fruits of which will be of such a nature in the long term that the welfare generated in this way will ensure the country and all its people of prosperity and stability.

But what is the reaction of the Opposition? During the entire duration of the No-confidence Debate I listened with great interest to the hon members on that side of the House and I did the same this afternoon. Their inability to produce anything like a meaningful contribution in this connection is shocking. The Opposition’s lack of understanding and insight, their inability to rise and soar with the eagle, was once again very clearly illustrated during the past few days.

I should like to explain the importance of the hon the State President’s address. Surely it is true that we are living in a dynamic world, living a life in which survival is only possible if one is constantly able to adapt oneself to changing circumstances. Surely that is a fact as old as life itself. For us in the RSA with its complex population structure and with a rapidly growing Third World component, this reality is particularly applicable. This is the challenge we are facing, a challenge which requires more of a person than, like the Official Opposition, merely drawing one’s head into one’s shell exactly like a tortoise, almost as though the realities of the world around one did not exist.

In contrast the hon the State President has come forward with an initiative which grips the imagination, an initiative which establishes the economic substructure for sustained evolutionary reform, and does so in socio-political spheres as well. [Interjections.]

Surely we have to get our priorities straight. I am referring in this connection to the hon the Leader of the PFP. His reaction was merely to complain that the hon the State President, according to him, referred only in passing to reform. I want to say with all due respect that he missed the entire point. The address of the hon the State President breathed a spirit of reform. Even the hon member for Yeoville agreed with that. What the opposition does not understand is that reform can only be implemented within the economic means of a government.

Thorough regard must be had for economic factors, including productivity. Economic growth must serve as the pace-setter. If these realities are ignored, the danger exists that we could go the way of so many African states to the north of our borders. We dare not create political expectations which cannot be met economically. That is a recipe for revolution. In this connection I want to point out to hon members of the Official Opposition that their policy of partition in fact also follows the path of revolution.

If, against this background, one considers the hon the State President’s address, one realises its tremendous importance. In order to pull the Third World component of our population up by its shoe-laces, the necessary economic leeway must be created. The responsibility for this does not rest solely with the State; every citizen in this country will have to be make sacrifices. The private sector has accepted the challenge to cooperate in this connection, in partnership with the Government. Therefore I want to make an appeal to hon members on both sides of this House to co-operate in a spirit of patriotism—as the hon member for Yeoville showed us could be done—and not try to make petty political capital out of such an important matter.

Mr Chairman, it is an exceptional pleasure for me to speak after the hon member Mr Hattingh. He made a well-considered speech, and one has great appreciation for the way in which he addressed this House.

I am the fourth successive speaker on the Government side to participate in this debate. It seems to me the Official Opposition has decided that it has no kick left. Now, at this late hour of the afternoon, I want to set the cat among the pigeons. If we look back at the speeches that have been made here during the past few days, and since the opening of Parliament, we realise that the by-elections have exerted an exceptional influence on the contents of most of the speeches. One can probably understand that, because this forum is there for the political parties to use, but one sometimes wonders whether it is not being misused. The question which arises in my mind is whether it is really in our interests, or whether we can afford to keep on indulging in petty politics, while there are major national issues which we have to tackle.

As has already been pointed out very effectively by previous speakers, and particularly by the hon member for Kuruman, we had the negative experience that the epoch-making speech on the economy by the hon the State President resulted in the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition reacting to it by virtually ignoring it in his zeal to try to promote the sectional politics of the AWB. The same applies to a great extent to the other CPs. Very few, if any, positive contributions were made on the questions which deserve to be debated. I maintain that this is primarily the result of the pending by-elections.

I wonder whether we can still afford the luxury of by-elections every few months. [Interjections.] Yes, I knew there was a good possibility that what I wanted to say this afternoon would again be misused by the CP in an effort to engage in petty politics. However, I hope they will accept that I am trying to say this in a responsible way, and will afford me an opportunity of stating my case. They can then react to it. Frequently a byelection has not even taken place yet, when there is another by-election in the offing. What I want to emphasise is that my argument has no bearing on any specific by-elections which are now pending.

However, I want to quote from a leading article which appeared in the Sunday Times of 14 February 1988. Unfortunately this leading article is in a newspaper from which I am not fond of quoting. [Interjections.] In this case I feel there is value in what this editor says, and it links up with my own feelings on the matter:

The final paragraph reads:

Although I am thoroughly aware that there are specific reasons for holding by-elections—particularly because they serve as a political barometer and because they are democratic—I think that the disadvantages should also be thoroughly considered. The main disadvantages are probably that the emphasis in by-elections is frequently placed on short-term gain, at the expense of the national interest. There are considerable cost implications, wastage of manpower and time, and in particular the disadvantage that important renewal in politics is frequently difficult to realise during by-elections. Sometimes it even happens that appointments are influenced in order to avoid by-elections.

I am not suggesting—this is important—that any vacancies which should arise should not be filled. However, I am asking whether it is not possible to do so with less disruption.

Is that how you want to stay in power?

No, that hon member must wait a minute. [Interjections.] If we keep on holding by-elections, it would be far better if they take place, for example, in November of each year, instead of holding constant by-elections. Such a date would have very little effect on the activities of Parliament. If it should entail that a seat would be vacant for longer than three months, it is always possible for provision to be made by the political party that won the seat during the previous election to nominate a person to officiate until the by-election is able to take place. The position could even be arranged in such a way that the nomination remains in force until there is another general election.

The advantages of by-elections are probably being exaggerated. Today we have very good opinion surveys in any case, which can to a great extent serve as a political barometer. It would not be undemocratic to spell out clearly to the voter, during a general election, that the party winning the electoral division concerned would be empowered, should a vacancy arise, to nominate a substitute. One would then be laying one’s cards upon the table as far as one’s voters were concerned.

Perhaps the greatest objection to doing away completely with by-elections would be that the possibility of bringing the Government to a fall by means of a by-election would be done away with. My reply to this is that a motion of no confidence in the Government can still be passed, and that in any event it would be more destabilising, in the new dispensation we are entering, if by-elections of the one group in Parliament were able to disrupt the operation of the entire system. I am not trying to suggest something here in regard to which I want to profess that I have the final, expert answer, but I feel that the question of by-elections, which has a constant disruptive effect on politics, should be subjected to serious investigation. There might be other methods than those I have suggested, but this is the plea I should like to make this afternoon.

Mr Chairman, we have just begun our financial debate while the Government has a fairly bankrupt opposition to deal with. The Official Opposition could honestly not muster more than two speakers in this whole debate. [Interjections.]

Ask your Whips what is going on!

The current situation is incredible, and to protest there is simply not good enough. The CP is simply not capable of participating in debates in this House on the financial affairs of this country.

We want to give you a chance. You will give us an intellectual lecture.

He is afraid you will not understand it!

The PFP leans so heavily on the hon member for Yeoville that the whole party had run out of steam by the time he had finished speaking. They then had nothing more to say, either. [Interjections.]

My people are waiting to speak. You do not want to give them a chance.

We do not want to give them a chance? We are all waiting for them. This debate bears the stamp—we still have a great deal to discuss on that subject—of the hon the State President’s Opening Address for this session of Parliament. When one reads through the speech, there are four components that time and again come clearly to the fore.

In the first place it is very clear that the Government wants to reduce State expenditure. In the second place it wants to relieve the tax burden on the taxpayer. This is the express wish of the hon the Minister of Finance, and this is why the Margo Commission was appointed, which issued a report last year. The third component of this speech which I should like to discuss is the battle against inflation which will be fought repeatedly. The fourth point, which is very important, and should not escape the attention of this House is the continuation of the battle against socialism. I should like us to make further contributions on this subject in this debate.

The Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, Assocom and all such bodies and organisations have repeatedly expressed themselves very strongly on the subject that excessive State expenditure is the greatest contributory factor to the inflation spiral we have been experiencing for the past few years.

We can debate the question of whether this is true or not, but I do not think it is important any longer. The fact of the matter is that State expenditure is now to be drastically curtailed.

Use simple words; the CP is present.

If the State limits its expenditure the taxpayer will benefit in that he will be paying less tax, because the taxpayer can do a far better job of spending his rand, for which he has worked, than the State. He can use it far more productively because he has worked for it. It is therefore the task of every one of us to assist in this reduction of State expenditure.

I then want to associate myself with the hon member for Vasco who has already said a few words on the subject. This morning, while I was driving to Parliament …

How fast do you drive?

No, I do not drive very fast. I was listening to an interview with an official from a department. It dealt with a fitness programme that was being organised by that official of the department in a certain region of the country. Not long ago I was also fortunate enough to listen to “Vrouerubriek”, in which an official from another department was discussing cake and other recipes. It is certainly true that these people are doing good work. That is certainly true, and that they are earning a month’s salary is also certainly true. I do not want to say they are not good officials, but is it really for the State to organise fitness programmes …

And to bake delicious cakes. [Interjections.]

… and to distribute cake and other recipes? [Interjections.] The taxpayer can use his rand to go and buy those recipes. With that rand he can simply join a health club or a gymnasium.

I have asked that all of us should help. Do those able Ministers sitting over there not want to help with the cake recipes and fitness programmes? The taxpayer can benefit more from his rand.

You are a cake hater. [Interjections.]

The hon member would be surprised. [Interjections.]

Order! I am very grateful that no one raised a point of order; I would not have known what ruling to give! [Interjections.] The hon member may proceed.

Mr Chairman, who benefits from this? Of course the fitness programme would not be organised, but the taxpayer who would have had to pay for the organisation of that fitness programme will pay less tax, and he could have organised the programme just as well, if not better, in his own area.

Order! With reference to a speech made on 15 February 1988 in which the hon member for Border made certain comments about the hon member for Mamre, it has been brought to my attention that the two hon members have resolved the matter. The matter is therefore regarded as settled.

Sir, I should like to request that the hon member for Border rectify the matter here in the House.

Mr Chairman, according to Hansard there is nothing for me to rectify. I have discussed the matter with the hon member outside the House, however, and the matter has been resolved.

Order! Is that correct?

No, Sir, the hon member must withdraw what he said.

Order! What must the hon member for Border withdraw? I have the Hansard in front of me, and if the hon member for Mamre thinks the hon member for Border was implying certain things, he should have said so. If certain things were said by implication, will the hon member for Border withdraw them?

Mr Chairman, no implication was intended.

Mr Chairman, I do not believe the matter has been finalised.

Order! Let me read what the hon member for Border said:

He did not say which person. That is why I asked the hon member for Border whether he was implying that the hon member for Mamre was the person who was being sought.

No, Sir, no implication was intended. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member Mr Lockey must not try to ignite fires when I am trying to make peace. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I do not want to take the matter any further, but I do not think peace is being made and I am not satisfied.

Order! The hon member must not question my ruling. I looked for the hon member, and have no choice now but to ask the hon member and the hon member for Border to come and see me in my office so that we can settle the matter. I do not want to waste any more of the House’s time in this connection.

Mr Chairman, I move:

Mr Chairman, as a plattelander you will agree with me that nowhere is the interdependence of the various population communities emphasised as much as it is in the platteland, the rural areas. And, Sir, the same applies to the suffering.

It is true that for historical and political reasons the White community in the rural areas has played the leading role as far as the creation of employment opportunities is concerned. For that reason the results of the latest survey of the Institute for Socio-Economic Research at the University of the Orange Free State on Region B are deeply shocking, to say the least. I want to use this region as a typical example of the South African platteland. It is a region which stretches from Britstown, De Aar and Carnarvon in the south as far as Prieska. It also includes the Upington area and extends eastwards to Kuruman, Postmasburg and Vryburg, with Kimberley as the centre point. Let us call this the central region.

I say they are deeply shocking, because we find in the first place that there has been a considerable reduction in White numbers in more than half of the 44 towns in the region. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, may I please ask the hon members from the Cape to lower their voices a little. I realise they do not like the platteland much.

Order!

A direct implication of this is that specific services and facilities in certain towns are deteriorating. Quite a number of these people were also job providers—even if it was only to employ a domestic servant—and in this way the spiral of unemployment continues. As a result of job conditions it is expected that the White numbers will diminish even further. And so the problem grows.

The Coloured population in the region has grown by an average of 2% per annum between 1970 and 1985. But even here depopulation from towns to cities has made its influence felt, and in 13% of the 44 towns there was a decrease in the numbers of the community. A clearer demonstration of the shortage of employment opportunities is illustrated by this migration.

But, Sir, if only that were all.

†We also find that there is a very high degree of youthful dependence. The medium age is 18 years for the Coloured community compared to 20,45 for the rest of the country.

*The burden of dependence which this community bears is therefore considerably greater than normal, and this contributes to the socioeconomic problems of the region.

Let us consider for a moment a few aspects of the socio-economic position of the platteland, with special reference to central South Africa.

In spite of the relative success that has been achieved with the house-selling campaign in other parts of the country, there is still a low incidence among the Coloured communities of the central rural areas. Thus the study published the day before yesterday by the University of the Orange Free State indicates that only 2,9% of the Coloured community in the De Aar area are home-owners. In Prieska/Carnarvon the figure is 8,6%; in Upington 26,8%; in Kuruman/Postmasburg 10,4%; in Kimberley 39,3%; and in Vryburg 8,7%. The average home-ownership among the White component for the same region is an average of 70%! [Interjections.]

I readily concede that the economic levels of the population communities cannot be compared, but I believe nevertheless that in spite of everything that has already been done by the State in this connection, we have to give special attention to the rural areas. Naturally it is the task of every hon member of this House to encourage homeownership among his voters. [Interjections.] Perhaps I should repeat this: It is the task of every hon member of this House to ensure that homeownership is broadened as far as possible. The direct impact which home-ownership has on community development cannot be insufficiently estimated or underestimated.

Order! I have made a call for order, but the hon member for Heideveld has not responded. I ask hon members for the last time please to contain themselves. The hon member for Diamant may proceed.

It is not me, Mr Chairman.

Mr Chairman, I have a problem. I can speak alone, but I cannot sing along with my hon colleagues.

I come now to the question of whether there is a shortage of accommodation in the rural areas. During the past three years, Sir, there have been repeated pleas for this, and I know the Ministers’ Council is giving attention to the matter. A problem which is occurring to an increasing extent in the provision of housing in the rural areas is the heavy costs of providing services such as water, sewerage and electricity. Bearing in mind that more than 75% of the families that still have to be provided with orderly housing in the rural areas fall into the lower income group, there are serious doubts as to whether these families will be able to afford the ever-increasing costs involved in the provision of services. Adequate dwellings, I think, can in fact be made available in due course at a subsidised interest rate, but the cost of providing services can cause this ideal to miscarry—in spite of the commendable efforts of the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture and his colleagues.

For these reasons local authorities and the State will have to make special attempts to acquire additional income to be able to subsidise, in this way, these “poorer” families with the costs in connection with the provision of services. It may well be that limited means already exist for helping these persons, but now I ask: Have they been sufficiently publicised?

It is also high time we asked ourselves seriously whether enough is being done in the rural areas to promote healthy community development. Let me say this without beating about the bush: One gets the impression that too many State and semi-State institutions are striving to promote community development without proper co-ordination. The problem is aggravated further in that the department—and now I am not criticising any individuals—whose scheduled task it is to help with co-ordination in this sphere, is experiencing a shortage of staff, particularly in the central region. In this way eight posts are at present filled in this region and another is to be filled soon, but there are still five vacant posts. But that is not all. Candidates are simply not applying for the posts, because the educated young people avoid the rural areas and are snapped up by the big city companies.

We need not elaborate at length on sport and recreation, except to say that it is our bounden duty to ensure that the necessary facilities are established as soon as possible. We welcome the building of sports complexes such as the one in Vryburg, but we want similar facilities in every town.

Order! Is the hon member for Nuweveld reading something that has a bearing on the debate? If not, the hon member must please stop doing so immediately. The hon member may proceed.

As far as education is concerned, the picture is rather sombre, in spite of the enormous amounts of money being spent on the construction of new schools, and on school tuition. Surveys indicate quite clearly that the Coloured population in the rural areas is to a great extent illiterate. Approximately 83% of the inhabitants in the De Aar area have received no school education, or have received school education only up to Std 5. The figure in the Prieska/Carnarvon area is 71%; it is 75% in the Upington district; 82,1% in the Kuruman/Postmasburg area and 34% in the Vryburg district. I am not mentioning these figures in order to criticise certain areas or towns, but to point out the backlog, a backlog which cannot be eliminated by means of formal education. It is a perturbing situation which must be rectified by more than mere formal school tuition. To my mind the need for a comprehensive rural community development strategy is emphasised by these figures. The total involvement of the community in such a project is essential, because without the community such a project means absolutely nothing.

In earlier years teachers played a leading role in our communities. In addition there are many ex-teachers in this House. In the old days teachers shared the joys and the sufferings of the rural community. In many respects this is no longer the case today. I want to make an appeal to teachers and the teachers’ bodies and ask them to accompany our people on their journey through life, and in so doing help them to break away from the spiral of community poverty. [Interjections.]

In recent years we have read a great deal about big companies—I sometimes wonder whether Haarlem is not part of the rural areas, because the hon member for Haarlem is responding so amicably to what I have to say today—that had to close their doors owing to financial conditions. In the rural areas we weep if a single farmer winds up his activities. Every farm represents not only a workplace, but also a smaller community.

Today I want to request that the area between Plooysburg and Upington be opened up and developed as an irrigation scheme for the Coloured farmer, or perhaps I should rather say, especially for the Coloured farmer.

I like the pleasant smile the hon the Minister is giving. We thoroughly understand the tremendous cost implications, but I also believe that this will lead to the development of agriculture in the region. We are referring specifically to the irrigation area, because one can do only so much with the existing farms. They cannot be extended any further. New areas must be created and the only way of doing that is to expand the irrigation schemes. Attempts must also be made, from the agricultural base, to create second and third phase industries. We must create job opportunities for our people, in the larger towns as well, and in our cities.

I am saying this because the high unemployment rate has hit this area hard. While the countrywide unemployment rate among the male Coloured population last year was 9,2%, the latest figures for Kuruman/Postmasburg, Kimberley and Upington are 14,9%, 15,5% and 17,8% respectively. As you yourself can see, Sir, this is almost twice as high as the countrywide figure.

In the case of women it is even worse. In some cases the unemployment rate is almost three times higher than the average rate for South Africa. Perhaps it would be a good thing if we mentioned the figures. In Kimberley it is 32,2%; in Vryburg, 25,8%; in Kuruman/Postmasburg, 28,5%. These are tremendously high figures.

That is why the Defence Force has decided to instruct the Department of Public Works to build a defence force camp at Kimberley. It will be done in phases, and will cost a total of more than R40 million. This is highly appreciated by the community, because it will provide employment—not only for Kimberly, but for the entire central region. The entire central region will benefit from this development, at which almost 4 000 men are going to be trained annually.

Perhaps it is time we made an appeal to other departments also to create such projects, and in that way do something for the rural areas. We must not only look after the big cities. We must remember that if things go badly in the rural areas, this eventually works its way slowly to the cities, and then everyone suffers.

Mr Chairman, I welcome the private member’s motion which has been introduced because every member whose name appears on this list of speakers can now air his opinions on the economic upliftment of our people and the development of our areas.

During our election campaign we went from town to town in our constituencies and promised our people that the first matter we would tackle as members of the LP would be the upliftment of our people and the development of our economy. Therefore I welcome the private member’s motion that has been introduced here. We ask ourselves where we must begin. The concern here is with the rural areas. Actually there are many places where a start must be made.

We must begin with the child, for example—with schools and creches. The necessary facilities must be made available. If one considers the various schools in the Cape Peninsula, one finds that the school premises and all the accompanying facilities are often so large that they would stretch across the entire residential area of some of our smaller towns. This is our problem in the rural towns. Only the school building stands on the premises. Not even a decent netball court can be built. There are no recreational facilities or halls at these schools. This has had an influence on our economic development in the country. It would help if we had the necessary facilities so that our children could be encouraged to further their studies.

One finds that children in the rural areas leave school at a very early age. For example, one even finds children leaving school after standards 3 and 4. Most school-leavers can be placed in this category. The question that arises is: Why do children leave school at such an early age? They do so because there are insufficient job opportunities for their parents. They think that they are helping their parents by leaving school and going to work, thereby supplementing the family income.

Therefore it is essential that the same facilities that one finds in the cities are also provided in the rural areas. There should be no discrimination against the rural areas. What applies to the cities also applies to the rural areas. It is discriminating to do more for the cities than for the rural areas. Indeed, learning should be the same everywhere. The curriculum is the same and all schools fall under one department. Then why is there this discrimination? I want to make an urgent appeal for the same sports and recreational facilities to be provided at primary and high schools in the rural areas. Even at high schools many of these facilities are lacking.

With regard to schools, I also want to request that subject advisers advise our pupils correctly at high school. They must guide them in the right direction, because it happens sometimes that subject advisers do not care whether pupils make the correct subject choices or not. The result is that the pupil takes the easy way out by choosing the easiest subjects. However, when he gets to matric he finds out that his subjects are worthless.

The result is that many matriculants are unemployed and on the streets.

It will stimulate the economy if our sons and daughters are correctly advised at the beginning of their high school careers. These students can then enter various fields of study. For example, they can study in an industrial direction and help to provide employment opportunities by starting industries. They can create employment opportunities in the rural areas in particular.

The depopulation of the rural areas is a great evil, because many facilities are only available in the cities. There are many job opportunities in the cities which attract the rural population to the cities, and the rural areas suffer because of this. It is usually the better qualified Coloureds who leave the rural areas for the cities because there is no future for them or for their children.

However, we are experiencing another problem. There is not sufficient housing for our people either. Where does the problem lie? Yesterday the hon member for Border said that the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture was dragging his feet in the House of Representatives.

I do not believe that the fault lies there, however. I have travelled widely in my constituency and have learnt from experience that the problem lies with our local authorities. That is the evil. I can name the various towns in my constituency where the community needs housing. We go to the municipalities and ask them to submit applications. I can give hon members an example. This morning I received a letter from one of the towns that we visited in my constituency. I am not going to mention the little town’s name, but when we approached the local municipality of that little town it became apparent from the economic survey that 50 houses were needed and we decided that 50 houses would be built. After our departure, the local authorities met. They ignored the committee and did not want to negotiate with it at all. They went directly to the community and told them that only 18 houses could be built.

That is a disgrace!

In their ignorance the people agreed, and so they decided that only 18 houses would be built instead of the 50 houses that we had decided on earlier. This is the kind of thing that happens.

With regard to housing, it was also decided in another town in my constituency that 150 houses had to be built. This matter began to stall long before we joined the new dispensation. The town clerk postponed the matter from time to time. At one stage he said that the people could not afford it and I persuaded him that they would, in fact, be able to afford it. They then promised to apply. Application was made. Money was made available and it was approved by our department, but I have been struggling with that municipality for two years now. I travel back and forth—it takes me two and a half hours to drive to that town—to talk to them and to clear up the matter. When I arrive there they start making all kinds of plausible excuses. There is much glib talk and the department is blamed, for example for not having reacted to correspondence from the municipality. If one approaches the department, they have proof that they have been in contact with the municipality and have made arrangements. It then seems as if the municipality is to blame and that they are not doing what they should be doing.

I also want to make an appeal for our people in the rural areas to be helped. There is the case of a small businessman, for example, who applies to the SBDC for funds and is told that there are no funds available. Is it not the SBDC that must help to provide these people with an opportunity to start small industries? After all, it will be possible in this way to ensure that people are employed, and the unemployment problem in our country and especially in the rural areas could be solved. [Interjections.]

There are so many other things I still want to discuss, but my time has expired. I hope that my hon colleagues who are going to be afforded opportunities to speak will also discuss these matters.

Mr Chairman, it gives me pleasure to participate in this debate on the socio-economic development of the rural areas. Unfortunately, I cannot cover all aspects and therefore I am glad that my hon colleague is going to cover the rest. I shall focus on rural areas and education.

The question of the deterioration of the rural areas is one that has been with us for years. While I was in Cairo in 1943, I picked up the daily newspaper Egyptian Times. It contained an article about the “Native Reserves of South Africa”.

I was eager to see what information they had on the “Native Reserves of South Africa” because I knew that at that time these areas also included the Coloured rural areas. In the article the author said that some of the most beautiful parts of the country had been allocated as so-called “Native Reserves”. However, he also said that the beautiful areas had become unproductive and barren as a result of overgrazing and soil erosion.

That was in 1943, in other words, before some hon members in this House were born. Yet, if one wants to identify the rural areas of Blacks and Coloureds today one must undoubtedly look for the barren, undeveloped areas. Thousands of tons of soil have been washed away to the sea.

I should like to indicate why this is the case. The soil in these rural areas was denuded mainly as a result of continued agricultural and gardening practices which were uneconomical. Ploughing of marginal land that could not afford to be ploughed and the overgrazing of pastures were reasons for this. The ploughing of land that was only suitable for stock farming was another reason why our rural areas deteriorated in this way.

However, it was not the first time that something like that had happened. Around 1933 South Africa learnt a costly lesson. The South African Government then called on experts from America who had dealt with the great dust bowl of Central North America. These experts taught South Africans what to do about soil erosion and soil conservation. The results were astounding. I taught in De Aar for six years and one of my neighbours, Gollie Nieuwenhuizen, almost became a millionaire just by constructing earth dams and contouring for the White farmers, because they could deduct improvements to their farms from their taxes. I should like to know why concessions of this kind were not also made to our Coloured farmers as well as the Black farmers. In our areas that simply did not happen. Coloured rural areas benefited little from the expert advice that these Americans gave our country on soil conservation. The farmers did not pay these sums for soil conservation themselves. They were derived from tax sources.

In which rural areas today does one still find small antelope? They have either been extinguished or driven away. Where are the perennial water resources in our rural areas? They no longer exist. Farmers in the rural areas experience great difficulty in supplying their livestock with water.

We saw what happened to Regopstaan Kuiper. He worked for Coloured farmers in the Mier area together with a few Bushmen. Today we find him in the backyard of a White farmer in Kuruman. He is there now because the Coloured farmers can no longer employ him since they are experiencing hard times themselves. The situation is caused by overgrazing of their pastures and the subsequent decline of the Coloured farmers. The main reason is that these farmers themselves lead a precarious existence. There has been a drop in production in the Coloured areas in general.

I want to make an appeal to our hon the Minister today to take care of these areas. If the poor-White farmer could be assisted with soil conservation in those days, I feel that our farmers should also be helped. I know only a few Coloured farmers who farm scientifically, and one finds the majority of them in the Keimoes area. Indeed, one feels honoured when one visits their farms and one feels there is a sense of community and that one is on the farm of a farmer who is setting an example for everyone around him. He is a farmer who is able to produce, and this could come about if we were to help the farmers.

We know that the situation was not always that bad in the rural areas and that our forefathers made a good living there. But today it is a precarious existence, because the situation with regard to the natural resources and the natural ground cover cries out for attention. Perhaps it is the same as it once was in the Transkei when the only people who worked the land were the women and children. The economically active workers were on the mines and in the industrial areas. As a result of the migration of people from the rural areas to the cities, nothing has come of our agricultural activities. They have deteriorated.

The large-scale urbanisation has led to the neglect of our soil. I feel that the time has come for us to eradicate this evil. Steps which can be taken to improve the position in the rural areas are the following: Our farmers, just like the White farmers, must receive drought assistance; our farmers must be helped to improve the quality of their livestock and grazing-land; drinking water for human and animal consumption must be made available through the provision of boreholes in the rural areas; the fencing off of grazing land and rotation grazing must be established. I have just received a note and am going to state the main points.

There is one problem with regard to the irrigation lands on which Coloureds would be able to make a good living, namely the tremendous cost of the petrol required to pump water out of the rivers. The farmers simply cannot afford it. They simply cannot keep up.

Suppose a person who was farming in Goodhouse on the border between South Africa and South West Africa had a reasonably good harvest of sugar-beans. However, because he has to transport his sugar-beans to the Cape, that good price that he received for his sugar-beans is ploughed back into the petrol needed to pump the water out of the rivers.

I feel it is high time we attended to the needs of these people. We must begin to help them. This indiscriminate hacking and burning of vegetation must be stopped. Our people must simply learn to respect the vegetation. Only then will we again be able to develop good livestock and begin to farm economically.

There has been talk here of the Cape people, and I want to say something about the Transvalers with regard to education. The Transvalers have always told those of us in other parts of the country: “Friends, you cannot talk about education because development in the sphere of education only takes place south of the Hex River Mountains. So keep quiet.” We felt wounded, but we reacted. We suggested that the educational institutions in the Transvaal, Natal, the Orange Free State and the Cape should form one unified education association which could work to the benefit of the country. Afterwards we addressed the inhibitive effect of apartheid on education. We called the evil by its name, namely “apartheid education”. We developed an awareness of the plight of farm children and farm teachers. Time and again we told the authorities that the only solution for farm schools was central boarding houses and travel facilities for children who live further than five kilometres from the school.

Many things have improved, but we shall only have succeeded when apartheid education has been completely eradicated, because only then shall we be able to utilise the hundreds of school buildings and facilities all over the country to the benefit of our rural inhabitants and South Africa as a whole.

Mr Chairman, I have repeatedly stated the case of the Orange Free State in this House. The rural areas of the Free State are among those places in the country that have been neglected over the years. I do not need to say this to hon members in this House, because I have been stating the case of the Orange Free State repeatedly since 1985.

As an inhabitant of the rural areas and a representative of a rural constituency, I consider this to be a matter of the utmost importance. Therefore I want to thank my colleague, the hon member for Diamant, for raising this matter in the House.

The housing problem is one which I have often dealt with in this House. I have already pointed out the problems of our people. Since I do not have enough time I am not going to repeat myself.

I should like to concentrate on our people in the rural areas and the lack of recreational facilities there. During December it was terribly hot in the rural areas of the Free State. To my shame I must say today that five people drowned in my constituency as a result of the fact that there are insufficient bathing facilities in the rural areas. Two of the children drowned on the day before Christmas as a direct result of the fact that there are inadequate recreational facilities for our young people in the rural areas. It is important that we address the matter. For this reason I should like to refer to the question of the building of schools.

Schools should be built in such a way that all facilities are included. In the rural areas there are small towns with populations of between 500 and 1 000 people. For economic reasons not all the facilities can be provided immediately. However, if we were to build well-appointed schools in the rural areas of the Free State with, for example, pool facilities, athletics and soccer fields, tennis courts and cricket and hockey fields, such well-appointed schools would serve as a central point. To erect a community hall costs almost R250 000, but if we had a school with a hall, the community would be able to use that hall. If there were a swimming pool at the school the community would also be able to use that swimming pool. A school could be the central point of any town in the rural areas.

It is true that a healthy body houses a healthy mind. I believe that we should actively address the matter and therefore I want to appeal to the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council to consider the proposal I made. Our schools must be thrown open to the community so that they can be used by the whole community. To build a church in a small place costs the church society no less than R200 000, and then there are only 90 to 150 members. A school hall could also be used for this purpose. By making use of school halls and classrooms for this purpose, the community would become religiously orientated. It is of cardinal importance that the school should become the central point in order to aid the socioeconomic upliftment of our people.

Last year I spoke about the economic aspects of the Western Free State constituency and asked for more funds to be made available for the creation of jobs. We can use the funds to create more job opportunities for the community by establishing more sports facilities.

If we begin to think along the lines of creating central points in towns in the rural areas where the needs of all these people could be fulfilled, I believe our people will be economically and socially uplifted. It will be able possible for us to be better people—people with a good disposition. If people are kept busy over the weekends, many evils in our society, such as knife-fighting and alcohol abuse would be eradicated. For the sake of the upliftment of our people, consideration must be given to the erection of such centres.

I want to raise a further matter. The various departments should open offices in the rural areas. I am thinking of Local Government, Health, Education and Culture offices. I believe that these departments would be able to provide employment. This would have a chain reaction and would make it possible to convey messages from the highest levels more clearly to the man in the street. I should like to make an appeal: We should work together to make this a joint project and the Ministers’ Council should pull its weight by making the necessary funds available for the upliftment of our people in the rural areas of the Free State.

Mr Chairman, I want to make use of the opportunity to set out the problems and needs of the rural areas in this House once again. It was indeed a pleasure for me to listen to the speech by the hon member for Grassy Park. It seemed he had become a real Namaqualander.

I want to repeat the statement I made in this House on a previous occasion: The region of Namaqualand is the Government’s stepchild, because over the years this rural area’s developmental needs and problems have simply been ignored by the Government. That is why we have a state of complete decline, poverty and underdevelopment in the rural areas of Namaqualand today. Various representations which have been made to the Government over the years, have fallen on deaf ears. [Interjections.] Various development proposals for Namaqualand which have seen the light over the years have been passed off as being uneconomical and have vanished into nothingness.

Namaqualand has always been one of the most isolated regions in the country—not only because it is situated far away from the large metropolitan areas, but also because it has an exceptionally underdeveloped infrastructure. The fact that there are limited natural resources aggravates conditions in these areas. This region also has one of the lowest annual rainfall figures in the country, and periodic droughts are characteristic of the area. That is why we find today that only a small part of the population there is engaged in farming, while the majority of the breadwinners are dependent for their income on sources outside these rural areas.

Therefore, if we want to improve the potential of the Coloured communities in these areas, proper attention will have to be given to the expansion of the available resources in each area.

These 24 rural areas cover a total surface of approximately 1,7 million ha and accommodate approximately 12% of the total Coloured population of the Republic of South Africa. The annual budget for these areas has therefore, in my opinion, been unacceptable every year. Take for example last year’s record budget of approximately R4 million for 24 rural areas. How on earth can development be initiated with that amount?

Build a casino!

If proper attention were to be given to an area such as the Richtersveld, Concordia or Steinkopf, the total amount of R24 million would be far too little for a single area. I therefore find it unacceptable and, as far as I am concerned, it is of the utmost importance that other sources be found for the necessary funds for these areas, even if one has to borrow that money.

Areas such as Concordia, Kommagas, Leliefontein, Steinkopf and the Richtersveld are all located in Namaqualand and cover a total area of approximately 1,2 million ha. This is more than half of the total combined area of all 24 areas. In this area farmers are engaged mainly in livestock farming and crop farming. In order to derive other incomes, people have to go and work outside these areas. They have to go and work on the mines in the neighbouring towns, because in those areas themselves there are hardly any employment opportunities.

People also engage in irrigation farming and mining activities on a small scale in some areas. In order to do justice to development in these areas, different resources will have to be considered, such as livestock farming, irrigation farming, mining activities and the creation of employment opportunities. These are resources within the area which must be developed.

Tell them, Mr Balie, tell them!

Keep quiet on that side. [Interjections.] Livestock farming is very dicey as a result of the fact that land is very limited. Practically all the inhabitants of the area want to lay claim to land and that places this resource under tremendous pressure. Over-grazing causes the denuding and ruin of the land surface and the vegetation. Things cannot continue in this way. Something will have to be done to prevent the land from being ruined completely and to prevent desert conditions from developing.

The Steinkopf area is bordered on the southwestern side by small farms belonging to White farmers. These farmers would like to sell their farms. On the northern side of Steinkopf we have unsurveyed State land. My question is: Can we not buy those farms from the farmers and incorporate the other unsurveyed State land into the area to relieve the pressure? If so, we shall have taken the first step in solving one of the greatest problems that the Steinkopf community is struggling with at present.

As far as irrigation farming is concerned, I once again want to appeal to the Government to consider the already existing planning proposals for this area. If those proposals are still not acceptable to the Government, another solution must be found. I have already involved private initiative in getting the development along the Orange River and at Goodhouse under way, with the hope that this will stimulate the interest of the Government, but thus far I have not been able to succeed in doing so. [Interjections.] I am talking about the Government and not about an own affairs department, because the development of Namaqualand by means of the utilisation of water from the Orange River can never be an own affair.

It is a general affair.

It must be a general affair, because the area as a whole must benefit from it. [Interjections.] We cannot continue to bear witness to Namaqualand’s being neglected in this way. Something will have to be done about this as soon as possible, because Namaqualand forms the boundary between the Republic and Namibia. We can consider the northern part of Namaqualand as a buffer zone. Once Namibia is independent, if its Government is not favourably disposed to South Africa, we shall have problems. That is why I want us to make those people on the border happy.

As far as mining is concerned, the Steinkopf area, Concordia and the Richtersveld have a lot of potential. There is quite a variety of basic minerals in this area. As far as the exploitation of minerals is concerned, a form of wasteful exploitation has been practised by various individuals and companies. This state of affairs has led to grazing land being ruined and the appearance of small paths criss-crossing the area. It has also resulted in all signs of minerals above the ground being wiped out. Consequently it is very difficult for prospectors to trace the minerals. I think a lot can also be done to assist claim-holders in carrying out their mining activities properly. A lot could be done, if funds were granted to them so that they could purchase the necessary mining implements or hire them. In this way, a proper processing plant could be built, and many of the minerals could be processed and refined locally. This could lead to the creation of employment opportunities in the areas.

If only we could succeed in getting the development of the areas under way, I could guarantee hon members that we would establish independent communities which would be self-sufficient, because the potential does exist. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, they say time is running out, but as a plattelander I was really looking forward to this debate, because I feel I shall be able to make a contribution towards the upliftment of our community in the rural areas.

When people talk about the orderly economic development of my people, I immediately think of the Boland and the song “My hart verlang na die Boland”. I also immediately think of the problems and frustrations that we in the rural areas have to contend with, especially we as MPs who are really trying to do something for our people. I also think of the words of a great South African, Genl J C Smuts, however. I want to quote what he said. In 1941 he said, and I quote from the book Counter Attack by Norman Herd:

As far as I am concerned, this message still applies to us in South Africa and specifically to this Government today.

In the rural areas we see that plans are still being made for us and not with us. We hear that that is good enough for us, that that is where we have to stay, and we simply have to go ahead and do so. If we look at where the so-called Coloured areas are situated, we can see that the “dice” which Adam Small spoke of, have been loaded against us from the beginning. We have never been able to win with those dice.

I want to associate myself with what hon members said here. At present the rural areas are suffering from tremendous problems. One can go to any town in the platteland on a Saturday morning and one will see which people keep the businesses going. One should also take a look at the treatment meted out to those people who keep those businesses going, however. We see that they are still treated as second-rate citizens.

Third-rate citizens!

In many places the towns do not even have toilets for the use of these people. A client is only worth anything to the shopkeeper as long as he has money in his pocket, but as soon as he has passed the cash register he is no longer a client or a person. That is why I am glad that we have an opportunity of addressing a matter such as this.

Unemployment is another great problem or headache in my constituency. At a meeting I held in one of the little rural towns in my constituency the other day, the people told me that it was no longer necessary to receive increases. There is talk about increases for public servants, but these people say they do not want increases any more, because as soon as they receive increases, all the prices go up in excess of their increase. I want to come back again to Norman Herd’s book Counter Attack. I want to quote what the “Chairman of the Cape Peninsula Commercial Employers’ Organisation” said in 1948:

I quoted this book specially, because those people were so right when they told me that it did not benefit them to ask for an increase. The prices simply rise again.

I pointed out who keeps the shops going, and I want to add that we expect these people to receive a better deal. Let me take a look at a place like Robertson. They gave us a swimming pool in Robertson, a beautiful Olympic-standard swimming pool, but unless problems such as drunkenness and immorality have been addressed, one can have a thousand swimming pools without any benefit to one’s community at all.

That is why I want to say that it is a very good thing and we are grateful. There are local authorities, however, such as those to which the hon member for North Eastern Cape referred. At times they are obstructionist when I want to solve my people’s problems. Last year I received a lawyer’s letter after I had addressed a meeting in my constituency and put my people’s case. What hurts most, however, is that one negotiates with the Administrator’s officials, they give one their word of honour, but the moment one turns one’s back, they do exactly the opposite. I have problems. Hon members all know I have problems in McGregor. I conducted negotiations with our MEC, Mr Adams, and with officials of the Provincial Administration. They said they would not allow the city council to administer the election which was to be held in McGregor, because at that time the community had no confidence in the city council. What happened then? The former mayor eventually went and looked for candidates to stand for the management committee.

I want to go further. As soon as one addresses problems, one receives letters such as the one I received from a White MEC. He says for example:

Do hon members know what I said? I said in the House that those city council members belong in an old age home. I still say so.

Say it again.

I say it again. I shall go further. I was also threatened with a summons because I had said it. I want to tell hon members that one receives such letters from officials who try to hamper when one wants to help one’s community. Now I ask: Is this system worth the effort? I must ask myself whether my people still want me to sit in Parliament, because if I am going to be obstructed in this way, I shall be wasting my time. In that case I could rather go out to work for the church and get more done.

I continue. The same hon gentleman wrote as follows:

He was referring to the people who serve on the management committee—

I extended a hand of friendship. Mr Chairman, I want to tell you that as long as things of this nature are going to happen and these obstructions are going to be left in our path, we shall not get anywhere in trying to do something for our people.

Mr Chairman, it is a privilege for me to stand up here today to put my people’s case. Today is the first opportunity we have had to state in the House the needs of our constituencies. I wonder what has happened to the Opposition, and whether they …

They are sitting here, Sir, they are sitting here.

All hon members in the House must please learn discipline so that we do not try to make an impression only when the Press gallery is full, but also when we have to address the issues of our constituencies.

If one takes a look at the rural areas and the problems existing there, one cannot but realise once again that the Government of the day, even in this House, is walking around with blinkers on. I do not think we can leave this development to be dealt with only by our hon Minister of the Budget. In fact, it is a disgrace that the entire Government is sitting in the House of Assembly to keep the CP in their opposition benches, instead of being here to address the real problems of the national economy.

Economic development is not an own affair, and if we expect our Ministers, who are burdened with housing, education and budget matters, to address this on their own, we are the ones walking around with blinkers on. I should like to quote from Die Oplossing by Louw and Kendall. It comes back to the social order and the economic policy of our country, and takes us back to the selfish economic policy which has applied in South Africa over the years, namely White capitalism. It was not a policy planned for the benefit of the community of South Africa at large, but rather a policy modelled on White capitalist domination so that they could retain political power. I now quote:

I think there is also very little advice forthcoming from the Official Opposition today.

Don’t worry, we are all here.

I continue:

What went wrong? Apartheid was the norm according to which this country ran its economy. Apartheid, as we know, brought nothing but poverty into the lives of our people.

If we look at Terblanche’s book, Politieke Ekonomie en Sosiale Welvaart, we see:

Order! Could the hon member please tell us for Hansard purposes on which page these quotations appear?

The quotation in Terblanche’s book is on page 159 and the quotations in Louw and Kendall’s book appear on page 94.

If we support the motion of the hon member for Diamant, we have no choice but to start with the fundamental principles of the causes of the impoverishment of the rural communities. Today I want to appeal to the Government to move more quickly—not only by privatising or taking similar steps—and to use some “turbo boost” to attain the goal of uplifting the rural areas. Our House must make a concerted effort to solve these problems. There should be better synchronisation of our actions, even within an own affairs department. I repeat, we must be better synchronised in respect of what we want to achieve so that we can realise our ideal in the shortest possible period of time.

In the rural areas we have seen ideals and desires to create growth points and development areas throughout the country. Maps have been drawn up, lines have been drawn, roads, airports and railway lines have been built, but what has really become of the grand schemes of apartheid now that we are experiencing an economic recession? We must make those growth points viable for our people, especially along the West coast where people are impoverished. Those people have to turn to the hon the Minister every day for concessions, permits or licences to fish. One cannot make a living if one always have to have a permit to go fishing or is controlled by a quota. For this reason I want us to attempt to develop the growth points along the West coast to their full potential.

We are grateful for what this House has done to create facilities on the West coast, because it is only since the establishment of the House that anything has really been done along the West coast. I want to tell the hon opposition members that since this House has started developing the West coast, things have been happening there. Previously the Coloured communities along the West coast were not involved politically and that is why it was not necessary to satisfy them politically. It is a fact that most of our Coloureds live and work in colonies of poverty. If we take a look at the growth point in Atlantis, we see that it is a colony of poverty-stricken Coloureds. My request today is that we consider the planning and the real function of Atlantis once again.

Atlantis is labouring under huge development costs: Services have to provided and structures and infrastructures have to be created. The people of Atlantis did not ask to be there and that is why I cannot understand why those who have been put there should be responsible for these things, and why they should be reduced to greater poverty.

Order! Hon members must please lower their voices. The hon member for Mamre may proceed.

It is such a pity that despite the regional services council, which is supposed to solve the problems of the rural areas, our people are being reduced to even greater poverty. Coloured housing in Atlantis and the attendant problems fall under one regional services council under the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture. Who has jurisdiction over Atlantis’ industrial area, however? Hon members must remember that Atlantis has no residents other than our people, but the area’s industries fall under the House of Assembly.

That is a disgrace!

It is disgrace, a swindle and discrimination at its worst. Our people are being exploited. I cannot see why Atlantis’ industrial area has to fall under the House of Assembly.

Boereverneukery!

It is more than that. The development costs of Atlantis are being borne by the people, but the profits of Atlantis are going to another hon Minister in the House of Assembly. Not one of his voters lives there, but they get the profits from the electricity, for example. Atlantis has two development accounts—one for the community and one for the industries.

That is another form of blatant apartheid and discrimination. My heart bleeds for the people of Atlantis, and the hon the Minister knows it.

If we want to create a new order in this country in order to uplift all our people, we must stop permitting people to be trampled on and crushed by poverty; we must stop aspiring to White domination in all spheres. I am referring to the economic, political and social spheres. That is why I want to appeal to everyone to strive for equality, justice and peace—before our country degenerates into a state of revolution.

Mr Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the motion of the hon member for Diamant. The motion, which is directed at the establishment of orderly socio-economic development as far as the communities in the South African rural areas are concerned, has Once again struck an exceedingly poignant chord in my memory, giving a computer reading of the tremendous backlog in the economic sphere— especially in the rural areas.

Before I confine myself to the rural area which I myself represent, I should like to present a few very important statistics to hon members. During the 1984 general election approximately half a million Coloureds voted—440 000 to be precise. These people voted for a better future; they dreamt dreams and cherished ideals. The time has come to set one’s sights on the rural areas, because for many years only the urban areas have been taken into account. [Interjections.] The rural areas are struggling. There is underdevelopment—especially in the socio-economic sphere.

I should like to return to the area I know best, viz Namaqualand. Do you know, Sir, that a certain constituency which has a surface area of nearly 105 000 square kilometres has only two clinics, one full-time and one part-time, which render a service. In addition, there are only two hospitals for the use of Whites, Coloureds and Blacks.

A serious, purposeful attempt must really be made to provide all the necessary facilities in the rural areas. Attention should be given to making clinics, hospitals, recreation facilities, the infrastructures of residential areas etcetera available.

When one takes a look at Namaqualand, one sometimes wonders what the problem is. Why is Namaqualand still so underdeveloped? The potential is there, after all. There are natural resources; there is mineral wealth. There are diamonds, copper, silver and zinc which can be exploited on an economic basis. There is the massive Orange River to the north, in which millions of cusecs of water flow unutilised to the sea every day. Along the lower Orange River there are thousands of hectares of irrigation land which are not used, but have been lying neglected for many years. I mention these things in support of my statements about Namaqualand’s potential for development.

As recently as last year, a consortium of consulting engineers was appointed by our hon Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture to make surveys along the lower Orange River and to report on the possible development of that irrigation land and those farms. I am afraid, however, that for the second time we have had to hear that this report has joined the previous reports where they have been collecting dust on a shelf.

What a pity that beautiful dreams have been scuttled once again.

The Development Act of the House of Representatives, Act 3 of 1987, makes provision for a development board which has been appointed by the hon the Minister in accordance with said Act. Now comes the rub. Do hon members know what the exclusive objectives of this development board comprise? These objectives only comprise community development such as the upgrading of existing towns and the promotion of urban renewal. How can one bring in the representation of the rural areas which serve on these development boards? In what way can one get them into the picture, when the aims of these development boards have absolutely nothing to do with the rural areas? These representatives regard themselves as being of no value whatsoever to their communities. They feel they are superfluous.

Wherever attempts are made to develop the economy in the rural areas, one simply runs into difficulties. Development in the rural areas is like Lot’s wife—static. [Interjections.] I am very serious in saying that. There must be urgent negotiation which will lead to the eventual development of the socio-economic framework in the rural areas.

Perhaps we could learn something about negotiation techniques from a rabbi. One day a friend brought two members of his congregation to the rabbi so that he could settle their dispute. The rabbi listened carefully to the first person’s story and nodded in agreement. “You are right,” he said. The second person then told his version of what had happened. The rabbi again listened carefully, nodded and said: “Yes, you are right.” “Wait a little, Rabbi,” said the friend, “what is going on here? They cannot both be right.” The rabbi said: “You know, you are also right.” [Interjections.]

Sir, I want to conclude with a few recommendations. Our aim in respect of the socio-economic development of the South African rural community must include the following: We must provide the necessary educational facilities. Provision must be made for practical training facilities in respect of culture and recreation. We should strive for the upgrading of peoples’ standard of living in the rural communities. Industries and tourist attractions must be established. Provision must be made for pleasure resorts. By establishing all these things, employment opportunities can be created in the rural areas—where there is a dire need for them.

Mr Chairman, as someone who grew up in the platteland, I am happy to rise in support of this motion. One can wax lyrical about the platteland, because when one looks at South African history, one sees that the men and women who have made their mark internationally all grew up in the platteland. There were the late Messrs J C Smuts, Hertzog and … [Interjections.] Mr Chairman, may I please carry on.

Order! Yes, you see, when I called upon you to speak, I said this was your chance to speak. I was implying that you make so many interjections when other hon members are speaking, that you must say everything you want to say now. Now that you have an opportunity to say something, you are the first person to complain. [Interjections.]

Among our people there were men like Allan Boesak, Franklin Sonn, Allan Hendrickse …

Willie Meyer.

Yes, Willie Meyer too. We are also having a by-election in the beautiful Cold Bokkeveld. When I look at the Official Opposition, I want to agree with Peter Sedigo, that all I can see here is the spare tyre. [Interjections.] The car and the engine have probably gone back to the garage to be oiled. This is a sign of how the LP is going to become a steamroller which will crush them in the platteland once again … [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member must confine himself to the motion.

Mr Chairman, this is such a broad motion that one can talk about all kinds of aspects. I should like to mention two aspects. In the first place I want to say that a great deal of progress has been made in respect of housing in our rural towns since the inception of this House—even in the Border constituency. A large percentage of our people will be able to become home-owners with the aid of the hon Minister. This will bring about an upliftment in the socioeconomic conditions of our people. [Interjections.]

Education is another thorny issue. Provision has been made in our towns for education, but there is still an enormous backlog and the situation leaves much to be desired when one considers the requirements of an ideal school with all its facilities. As other speakers pointed out, our towns need recreation complexes. In this respect I want to associate myself with one of the earlier speakers. The school should become the focus of the whole community and should make provision for everything.

In the present economic climate there is an increase in the unemployment rate as a result of the influx of farm workers to the towns, and this brings me to the second point I want to raise, viz the farms. It is a pity that one has to say that housing on the farms is still provided for the employees by the employers. As long as an employee is useful, he has a home, but once he gets too old, he has to get out. That is one of the problems the towns have to contend with as far as housing is concerned. I want to go further. If an employee has a family and works on a farm, he is often forced to keep his whole family there.

I want to put the other side of the coin as well, however. I want to praise certain farmers who have shown a different perception of the problem. I am thinking specifically of a number of farms in our hon Minister’s constituency of Pniel, and especially of the former Springbok, Boland Coetzee. [Interjections.] I challenge the whole of South Africa to go and see what this man is doing to keep his farm labourers on the land on which they were born. He has taken his profits and ploughed them back into that farm by providing facilities. The hon the Minister of Finance said yesterday that he wanted to come here to listen to a debate about the Group Areas Act, but I want to tell him to go and look at Boland Coetzee’s farm. One sees productivity there. One sees how everyone is making a contribution so that the farm’s profit is exceeding even that of the goldmines up in the Transvaal. [Interjections.]

Come off it!

That is only one example, but there are others too. In my opinion that is where reform is taking place, and if South Africa can continue at that rate, the Haarlem constituency will look a lot better before long as well. [Interjections.] The only thing they do there is pick apples and send them away.

I also want to praise another institution that is working hard on behalf of the farm workers in the Western Cape, viz the Rural Foundation. Those men and women go out of their way to provide people with the happiness they deserve. I believe the Rural Foundation should get a larger subsidy. They have done wonders in my constituency. There is a women’s club, for example, where women are taught the elementary housewifely tasks. I was impressed by the fact that the secretary of this club, a Coloured woman who has passed matric, takes the classes herself. They are exploiting our people’s slumbering talents, and that is something that should be appreciated and consolidated.

I now want to turn to myself and ask: What am I doing to help those people in my constituency? If my only aim is to find fault with things and to sling mud, this motion will serve no purpose.

I want to conclude by saying that my party, who submitted this motion, must consider making a combined effort on a regional basis to give our people their rightful place in the socio-economic sphere.

Mr Chairman, it is clear from the wording of the motion that we are referring to positive Government action to ensure that a combine effort is made to take care of the socioeconomic development of the rural communities. Until now these communities have been treated as South Africa’s stepchildren. Because of their economic backlog, they have had to watch the world developing around them, like orphans gazing vainly at shop-windows at what they could not afford or obtain. I hope that this motion will result in one thing—as all hon members who have spoken have said—viz that the attention of the Government will be focused on the platteland that has lagged behind.

Sir, you will forgive me if I concentrate mainly on the Southern Free State in my speech. If ever people have been forgotten and have lagged behind, the community living in this part of South Africa has. The new constitutional structure has also brought about a new dispensation for the education and culture of the so-called Coloured component of the South African population. Hon members will know that the provision of education is the lifeblood of any community’s socio-economic development. A community’s abilities are developed so that the country’s manpower potential can be developed in the best possible way. Organised education among our people has developed well over the decades. In the urban and semi-urban areas in our country, the educational system has reached a sophisticated level of effectiveness and a firm foundation has been laid for its further development.

But, Sir, let us look at the rural areas, and particularly at the Southern Free State. In all honesty, can we say that our education is equal to that in the rest of the country? How can one be trained socio-economically if education has lagged behind? School buildings, hostels for farm children, sport and recreation facilities, library services and health and welfare services are lacking in all the towns in my constituency. In Afrikaner history, in the social, economic and political spheres, the decade between 1925 and 1935 was almost revolutionary. Hon members know that the Afrikaner community in the Free State and the Transvaal in particular was caught up in a gradual process of impoverishment after the Anglo-Boer War. The worldwide economic crisis of 1929 aggravated matters dramatically. The subsequent depression and the ensuing drought in the early thirties caused the slow flow from the rural areas to the cities to become a stream. Large-scale urbanisation, as experienced particularly in the non-White communities of South Africa at the moment, is an immense problem at any time.

Just as this was catastrophic for the Afrikaners at that time, it is catastrophic for our people today. The Afrikaners went to the cities because they had been forced off the land. Financially they were indigent. What is more, they had to adjust from a rural way of life to an industrial dispensation. This was much more than just a geographic move. The city and its industries were not merely another place in which to live or work, but a totally new world with new values and new norms alien to them.

One of the direct consequences of this was the origin of the poor White question. According to the Carnegie Commission report, which had American support in investigating the problem, one of the worst problems was the fact that the poor Whites were unskilled. Their rural upbringing and background made them useful only as ordinary manual labourers.

Let us be realistic. Let us compare the development of our people today with that of the Afrikaners, as I have presented it. Then let us ask ourselves this question: Are we not in the same boat now as the Afrikaners were then? The Afrikaners must not blame us then if we want to put our case enthusiastically and eagerly and fervently just as they did, in order to win through. The Afrikaners of that time resisted their situation. Their whole being fought it. There was the deep realisation that their self-respect was at stake, and it is no wonder that they regarded the change in Government in 1948 as a great moment of liberation.

The moment of truth has arrived for us too. Earlier speakers used big words to indicate what things are like in their various constituencies. I also want to say that our people have recognised the problem of the rural communities and have made an accurate assessment of this today. In the spirit of this motion, let us do justice to the challenge of the joint upliftment of our people on the socio-economic level. Let us use this opportunity as a challenge and endeavour to do justice to our rural communities. I believe our Blood River is in the platteland and our Voortrekkers are our poor people, who, in the most critical conditions, have to make a stand against the surging Black tide. The harsh world of the economic machine is relentless, with the result that the poor rural communities are having to suffer in the slums of poverty and misery while in the urban areas the world is flourishing and making progress.

Let us establish facilities to release our rural communities from the stranglehold of poverty and stagnation, and to place them firmly on the course of socio-economic development so that they can fall into step and keep in step with the rest of South Africa.

Mr Chairman, I want to thank the Ministers’ Council for their co-operation. The rural communities are dependent upon the Ministers’ Council, and only their decisions can lead to upliftment in the towns.

When we look at the progress made in the towns, we must praise the hon Ministers for the sacrifices they have made. I also want to address a few important aspects to the relevant department. We can no longer neglect our duties to the Coloured farmers. Coloured farmers are given no opportunity to prove themselves. A lack of finance and sufficient agricultural land means that the farmers cannot farm productively. Although there are numerous regulations that restrict our Coloured farmers, many of them have made the grade. Attention will also have to be given to the Coloured businessmen in the rural areas.

Not at the corner shop.

No, not at the corner shop. Coloured businessmen in rural towns must be given financial assistance to run their businesses. Non-Whites in the country are the key to greater buying power. For this reason business centres in the towns will have to be expanded.

I had a look at today’s list of speakers, but it did not contain the names of hon members of the Official Opposition. When the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture was not here yesterday, the hon member for Border pushed out his chest and extended his wings. Why did he not do so today; why did he not repeat yesterday’s feeble statements today?

Order! The hon member must please confine himself to the motion.

I now come to the actual point I want to make.

Order! The hon member must please put his point.

It is a pity that we in the House have to talk on behalf of all the rural towns. This includes Queenstown, because the MP there is not doing his job and all correspondence is sent to the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture.

Sir, on a point of order: Either the hon member must prove that allegation, or he must withdraw it.

Order! The hon member for Northern Cape made a statement and the hon member for Border wants the hon member to prove it. The hon member for Fish River must contain himself. The hon member must accept the hon members’ word.

Yes, Sir.

Order! The hon member must prove the statement he made. We do not have much time. The hon member must either prove his statement or withdraw it.

Sir, I said that in the House, and in respect of the motion, we are talking on behalf of all the rural towns, including Queenstown. Must I withdraw that?

Order! The hon member said an hon member was not doing his duty.

Sir, which hon member is not doing his duty?

Order! The hon member in question said the statement was incorrect and the hon member must prove that he was not doing his duty. Order! This is the second time I have had to address the hon member for Fish River. The hon member may proceed.

Had I known the hon member for Border was the MP of that region, I would have withdrawn what I said.

On a point of order: The hon member is poking fun at the Chair. There was a clear reference and I want the hon member either to withdraw it or prove it.

I withdraw the statement unconditionally.

I want to come back to the motion and ask the hon member for Border whether he knows how a budget works. If he does not, he must ask the officials. The Budget is labelled 1986-87 or 1987-88, and the hon member for Border must find out how a budget works before he makes accusations against the hon the Minister.

Mr Chairman, I think it only fair, in the time at our disposal, to ask the hon the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Agriculture to react to some of the statements made here.

Mr Chairman, I am very happy to be present here today and to participate in this debate. The Official Opposition is employing the new tactic of creating impressions by simply saying things.

*If we say something, however, we must support it.

†Allegations have been made here—of course, people are correct in using the platform of Parliament to state their case—but we have the whole year ahead of us to deal with the Official Opposition—for example, in the debates on the various Budget Votes—and to disprove their case and to prove their lack of knowledge of parliamentary procedure. It is sometimes important to establish why people say things rather than to listen to what they are saying. Some people must learn to think correctly.

I am glad that this motion has been presented because it is an important motion. The Official Opposition, however, was absent; they did not contribute anything to the debate.

It is not necessary.

We have been accused of having a holiday as far as housing is concerned, but this was the second time that the Official Opposition did not consider it fit to participate in a debate. If these things are so important to them, they must use the opportunity for discussion in this House because this is the platform and it has been created for the discussion of own affairs, which they suddenly love so much these days.

It is necessary for this debate to continue taking place in South Africa. The situation must be analysed, because we are going through a complex, serious time with regard to future development in the field of housing. We on this side of the House have done our job, using the funds available to us. Hon members are correct in pointing out what is still missing, though. Various hon members have spoken in this debate. I am not going to reply to them in detail now; we will reply to them when the various Budget Votes are debated. That will give the officials the opportunity to look into the matters about which we are talking.

*What we are struggling with, for example, is to find suitably trained officials in our community to do this work. Possibly one could level criticism at the University of the Western Cape. Are they not training people who can undertake planning in respect of future housing development? It seems to me as though politics is in fact an important subject to them. However, if we consider the future of South Africa, as well as the phase our people are going through, development, housing and job creation are the important issues. Go and speak to them, Sir; go and attend meetings. You will then see how they react when people are doing something.

I want to convey my praise and thanks to hon members of Parliament who do their work in their constituencies, who know what is going on in their management committees and who know about applications that have been made. We can ask the hon members in this House, who have such a lot to say about budgets, whether they know what applications have been submitted in the respective towns and local authorities in their constituencies.

†We have to look for solutions. Our problems must be solved; we must work at them. We must not deny the fact that the major development in South Africa today is Black development—Black education. Funds are being steered in that direction, and various communities will feel that they are now being neglected. One can see what choice the Government has made. They have frozen the salaries of White teachers and civil servants because of the budgetary needs of other communities which have become paramount in the South African situation.

*We must participate in politics. For example we must prepare our people on the management committees for the upliftment work in the rural areas. They must participate in the election. The regional services councils are already beginning to function. Our people confer with Indians, Blacks and Whites on these councils. The plans are proceeding. I wish hon members could attend the committee meetings of the regional services councils, and see how the people are beginning to plan here in the Western Cape for example. We are dealing here with community committees.

This department, under the direct control of the LP, developed Blue Downs. Within a short period more than 1 000 houses were sold in Blue Downs. Since 1 December last year, more than 50 families have been living there. Show me another party or department that could do that!

People talk about further development, but they will still see all the things we are going to do.

†Mr Chairman, it is easy to use “tricky Dick” politics, but time usually catches up with one. We will deal with people who talk about nepotism at a more appropriate time.

*They can give one the definition of the word, but look out, brother, if you point a finger at someone, three fingers point back at you. The skeletons are going to come out of the cupboards. [Interjections.] Yes, this will happen to the people who use their positions to benefit their families. The time will come, because we have the whole year at our disposal.

†Some hon members have suddenly become non-racial, but one should have heard them in the old CRC. See how some of them are laughing. It is interesting to read Hansard and see how all of a sudden they have become converts to non-racialism.

Sir, I shall give an example of the complex situation in which we find ourselves in South Africa. Take farming, for example …

Order! Let me remind the hon member for Border that the hon the Minister is making his reply and answering questions. Please give him an opportunity to make his speech.

Sir, I want to give hon members an idea of how complex the situation in South Africa is. The hon member for Mamre spoke about Atlantis. Diesel engines for tractors are being manufactured at Atlantis. Do hon members know, however, what the projected figures are for tractors for the next few years? They will produce approximately 7 000 per year, because farmers do not have the money to buy new tractors. The average production years ago was 50 000 per year. This will definitely affect employment. We are, therefore, heavily dependent on the farming industry’s getting off the ground again.

We cannot depend on farming products for export anymore, because there is a glut on the European market. There is an overproduction of grain. There is an overproduction of farm produce, and our people are involved in the farming industry on the platteland.

We shall have to study how to plan housing and create job opportunities. We are involved. The hon member for Fish River knows—and so does the hon member for De Aar—how involved we are in planning water supplies for De Aar and Graaff Reinet. We are dealing with these things. We are not sitting on our backsides, merely talking. We are busy planning. We appointed community committees to look into things.

I agreed with the hon member for North Eastern Cape when he spoke about local government.

*We must pay attention to local authorities who neglect their duty to our people. There is a process in motion whereby certain local authorities sometimes cause delays when it comes to the carrying out of projects. Sometimes one has to keep on running back and forth. Hon members should come and see what my office looks like. Sometimes we have to give the management committees information which they were not even able to get from their local authorities.

†This problem of the development and future of our people in South Africa will have to be dealt with by us. We will have to take a lead in these things. In Cape Town there is a shortage of trained labour in the building industry in Cape Town. In certain areas there is a shortage of bricks. Industry is now looking at the House of Representatives because of the inputs we put into the housing industry as a whole. We are getting our people back into the job market.

We came here and we made a concerted effort to look at problems and deal with them. Of course our planning must become more co-ordinated. Look at Cape Town’s informal business sector— hawkers who sell fruit and vegetables.

Regulations are being relaxed in order to draw people into the informal sector. We have to create new jobs. These things are being looked at. Therefore, in our towns and constituencies, and in our positions of leadership we have to take a lead in preparing for the future in South Africa. We cannot merely talk about it, because the situation is becoming more complex. We cannot withdraw from this process of the upliftment of our people. We cannot leave them orphans. We have to participate in the political process. We have to become experts in future planning, so as to know the facts of the situation.

*Someone attended a congress yesterday and told this joke about agriculture. Mr Chairman, I hope you will pardon me if I repeat it. They say there are three ways of getting into trouble: The quickest is drink; the nicest is women and the most certain way is farming. [Interjections.] We must therefore see how we are going to deal with these things. In the few minutes at my disposal I want to tell hon members what we have done in the rural areas during the last few years.

†We built a factory at Haarlem for producing cartons for the apple industry. We built two roads through the Mier area, where no roads existed before, in order to facilitate farming in that area. I wonder if some hon members know where Mier is and what it is. [Interjections.] It is north of Upington, on the border of Botswana and South-West Africa. The water supply of Genadendal has been improved. However, we have not yet reached the end of the road. Mamre will get electricity. I can go on mentioning these things.

*Hon members can go and see what we are engaged in doing in Blue Downs and Ennerdale in an attempt to accommodate our people. [Interjections.] I just want to mention the facts. One of the members of Parliament who received the most funds in this Budget for housing in his constituency is the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition. [Interjections.] He received most for housing. [Interjections.] Now, however, he is moving a motion of no confidence in the Ministers’ Council.

As far as towns and urban development are concerned, we are making land and services available in accordance with the normal growth of our people. We are also paying attention to improving the quality of life of our people. We have a problem with housing, a dilemma. People have ever increasing expectations. Poor people now want three bedrooms, a bathroom and electricity. We must bring these things into line with the rent, and the bond repayments they are able to afford.

In places like White River, Warmbaths, Somerset East and Kokstad, where the local authorities were not able to do these things, we took over. We discharged our duties there ourselves. In terms of the Development and Housing Act, which was passed by this House, we are going to establish local authorities to carry out works in certain areas themselves. We must do these things.

In 1987 we spent R7 million on building pavements, improving parks and the development of open spaces and sports fields. We spent job creation funds to the value of R4 million. With these job creation funds we built community halls at places such as Tulbagh, Montagu, Moorreesburg and Piketberg. With the same funds we undertook housing projects at Plettenberg Bay and Jeffreys Bay. We provided 35 000 unemployed persons with work. This meant that we financed a total of more than 800 000 man-days.

This department, this party, is hard at work. It is the duty of hon members to talk about their constituencies and the shortages there. We have a long way to go. There is a long list of needs which we have to supply, but we must plan them. The hon member for Esselen Park discussed the new training college at Worcester. It cost R35 million.

We are working on the plans for a college at Upington. These plans have been approved in principle. We are taking our educational bodies to the rural areas. Extensions to existing industrial schools are being made at Wellington and Pacaltsdorp. I am pleased that our hon members are acting in a critical way.

†Criticism is the crucible when democracy is created. However, hon members must please get their facts straight when they are dealing with certain matters. Certain hon members of this House are going to be embarrassed by statements they make, and I want to warn them to be careful of what they write in letters.

*There are hon members here who are suddenly in possession of confidential information, and when a Minister discloses that in the House, there is a furore. As they say in court, after you have taken the oath, your oral evidence differs from your written evidence. Then we are dealing with the realities in politics.

I know that this party will not stand back from doing its work. I just want to refer to the high schools we are now building. In this connection I am thinking of the extensions to secondary schools in Carnarvon and Bredasdorp, a new primary school in Ceres, a new building in Cookhouse, new extensions to the primary school in Daniëlskuil, extensions to the secondary school in Genadendal, a primary school and new buildings at Grootdrink, a new secondary school at Kakamas. Extensions are also being made to the school at Kareedouw. So I can continue. I can mention various places in which we are proceeding with this work. We are working on the Brent Park Secondary School in Kroonstad. I have a whole list of schools and can point out to hon members that we are proceeding with planning for the provision in the rural needs, in spite of a shortage of funds. I do not become angry if people act critically towards our department. We are going to investigate this matter to establish what improvements we can effect in future. I want to express my thanks to hon members who participated in this debate.

†However, there is one thing I would like to ask hon members. I want to point out that in the future planning that we are going to discuss, there is one thing that worries me and that is our farming community. We have to establish a concrete policy to deal with this problem. We have to get our people back on the land. Farming is a problem today and when the Budget comes up for discussion, we will go into these matters.

Question agreed to.

Mr Chairman, with reference to newspaper reports last Sunday, and the reference made by the hon member for Border to funds for housing not spent by my department, I want to provide hon members with the following information.

These observations have a bearing on the recently tabled report of the Auditor-General. They deal exclusively with the special additional funds voted during August 1986 by the Treasury for job creation and for housing. The department immediately allocated the funds to local authorities. Although only R67,9 million was voted, a total of R71 791 000 has been allocated for the development of 91 projects. Approximately 70 of the projects, at an amount of R57 307 000, were to have been developed with Housing Fund loans, and 18 projects, at an amount of R12 984 000, with development funds.

Because a great deal of time is taken up with planning, as well as with administrative functions that have to be complied with, including the drawing up of tender documents and quantity lists and the calling for and approval of tenders, it was simply not practicable to spend all the funds during the 1986-87 financial year.

All the projects concerned, however, are at present in various stages of development and the allocated funds will soon be taken up by the respective local authorities. I should like to emphasise that not a cent of the available funds has been refunded to the Treasury, but these funds have been utilised for the development of vitally essential housing and other amenities.

I want to point out further that in this distribution my department and I have taken every possible step to alleviate the shortage of essential housing for our people as the highest priority. The following amounts confirm my words: In the 1985-86 financial year R186 million was spent; in the 1986-87 financial year R220,4 million was spent and it is expected that approximately R237 million is going to be spent in the present financial year on housing, the development of towns and the making available of community and sports facilities.

This afternoon I want to spell out clearly to hon members in this House that the Housing Fund is a revolving fund, and that all unutilised funds are repaid at the end of a specific financial year, and reallocated for the following financial year. Consequently there is no question of a loss of funds.

Mr Chairman, I move:

Agreed to.

Mr Chairman, my apologies. I was caught napping. [Interjections.] The first area that is referred to in the Schedule as printed in the Minutes of the House of Delegates dated Monday, 8 February 1988, refers to a portion of the farm Groeneberg 844 which is 580 hectare in extent. It lies in the district of Inanda, Natal. This land is required to resettle the Makadi tribe due to fears of flooding in their present locality. These fears have arisen due to fact that the Inanda Dam on the Umgeni River has been built in this vicinity. This item was previously deferred by the standing committee pending consultations of members of our component with the Ministers’ Council in this House and we are satisfied with the explanations given to us, that there have been extensive consultations and discussions with the affected Indian farmers in that area and that they are not being forced to move out of the area in question.

Mr Chairman, like the hon member Mr Seedat I, too, was caught napping and I crave your indulgence in allowing me to address some remarks to the first item on the Order Paper.

Order! The hon member may proceed.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. [Interjections.] We would like to support this proposal as well, and in so doing I want to place on record that it is embarrassing for me to compliment an hon member of the majority party in this House. However, I want to place on record that I do, in fact, compliment the hon member Mr Seedat because he has a thorough knowledge of what is contained in the report before us, and because of the thorough and responsible manner in which he has addressed his task. That, unfortunately, is more than I can say for other hon members of his party. [Interjections.]

The hon member Mr Seedat indicated to this House that the matter of Groeneberg had, in fact, been referred to the Ministers’ Council of this Administration for approval. I am given to understand that after discussions with the affected parties in Inanda, the Ministers’ Council has recommended that the area now be released in terms of the Act and that it be incorporated into KwaZulu.

We have the assurance of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in that regard, and I am quite prepared to accept that. Therefore, we have no problems with this particular report and we support it.

Mr Chairman, I want to confirm that initially there was a considerable amount of dispute, discussion and debate in connection with the transfer of this land. From a historical perspective the members of the Indian community do not want another square metre of their agricultural land to be lost because of the Group Areas Act or because of the KwaZulu consolidation.

I want to say that the constituency we represent holds very strong views about the excision of land which is under the jurisdiction of the House of Delegates. Nevertheless, there have been certain shifts in the demographic map of the area, as a result of which practically this entire area is now being occupied by members of the Black community.

We had our reservations about the suggested boundary in the initial recommendations and we held extensive consultations as a result of the meeting arranged by the former hon Minister of Housing. We are satisfied that we accommodated the members of the Indian community. We heard the true voice of the members of the Indian community. We had a meeting there. We inspected the area and their only reservation was that they wanted the boundary adjusted to such an extent that more Indian land would be incorporated. The reason they advanced this was that it was not practical for them to make use of their land which was not incorporated They accordingly suggested another boundary, and they advanced some very good reasons for this. [Interjections.]

That additional land which has been offered has some good homes on it, and it also has a school. I am sure that the Ministers in my hon colleague’s department will consider adequate compensation for that school at the appropriate time. I do not want to say how the school came to be empty. It was empty. It was not being used by members of the Indian community, but it is a beautiful school.

These, then, were their reasons. They felt that if they were on such a boundary and their land could not be used; that if it were not occupied and it were not incorporated into that area, then firstly they could not make use of their land and as a result of that, they would not be able to claim compensation.

Therefore, I am glad that my hon colleague’s department understood the predicament in which those people found themselves. For our part, we gave an assurance—we are not going to ask for compensation from my hon colleague’s department—that we would try to assist anyone who was displaced there with alternative housing, I do not want to give the reasons as to why they were displaced, with alternative housing. If we run short of finance, we shall make the necessary application to the department administering Black affairs.

Mr Chairman, we associate ourselves with the sentiments expressed by the previous speakers. I think the adjustments were made on realistic and practical considerations and with the understanding and consent of the Indian people in that area. The steps now being taken therefore have the support of our community and they are most welcome.

Mr Chairman, regarding this particular area in Inanda and Pinetown in Natal, the South African Development Trust is empowered to purchase land in the four provinces of the Republic. The government of KwaZulu granted approval in 1983 for the area situated in KwaZulu to be used for the construction of the Inanda Dam in the Umgeni River. There are four tribes involved here, representing a total of 1 356 Black families. The Involozi tribe, with the approval of Chief Benghu, accepted the proposed compensatory land described in the Schedule. Members of the Maghadi tribe, with the approval of Chief Ngobo, also accepted the proposals. Members of the Pepetua tribe, under their Chief Guala, are also prepared to be resettled. The affected families of the Inguzu tribe also requested that they be resettled.

Five hundred hectares of land is involved here. These people are presently living in the area where the dam is to be constructed. In view of the fact that all parties have agreed to it, I think that this represents a very good understanding on the part of the Government and the people who agreed to the annexation of the land as recommended and advertised. Therefore the committee saw fit to approve of this whole scheme and we support it.

Mr Chairman, I would just like to thank hon members very briefly for their support of this paragraph of the report. We realise the fact that Indian people have limited agricultural land available and therefore one has particular sympathy and understanding for the measure of sacrifice that is involved in this case. However, as the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council indicated, the South African Government, in no case where land is being purchased with a view to consolidation with a self-governing territory, expects any owner to sacrifice his rights without due compensation. I would like to endorse what the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council said, namely that due compensation, according to the legally and statutorily prescribed procedures and methods, is guaranteed to all owners of land and assets in this area.

Replacement value?

The calculation is done on the basis of market value by professional evaluators appointed by the Department of Public Works and Land Affairs and they consult with a board of specialists before a final recommendation is made. I therefore think it is done in a very thorough, objective and professional way.

I would also like to express my gratitude for the fact that in this case there was agreement and that we had the co-operation of the landowners concerned, although they gave their approval fairly readily because apparently they do not find themselves in a very conducive situation. I would also like to express my thanks to the members of the standing committee, and in particular to the Ministers’ Council for the way in which they carefully investigated this matter and came forward with a positive recommendation.

Finally, I would like to thank the hon member for Actonville for briefly outlining the background of the building of the Inanda Dam and also the broader consensus which had been arrived at between the KwaZulu government, the South African Government and the four tribes and chiefs concerned with a view to the flooding of the tribal land by the dam, and the due compensation carefully negotiated over a period of more than two years which will be implemented in this case by the decision which we ask this House now to take. I would like to thank hon members.

Recommendation 1 agreed to.

Recommendation 2:

Mr Chairman, I believe it is necessary at the very outset to place on record that we on this side of the House do not agree with the Group Areas Act. We also may not agree with the concept of homelands but we cannot deny their existence and that there are people residing in these homelands. To my mind the people living there are humble folk who have needs like any other community, be they from KwaNdebele, Qwa-Qwa, Lebowa or any other homeland.

Through their leaders these people make representations to the South African authorities from time to time for additional land and other necessities. It is the duty of the South African Government to consider these requests and where necessary establish the need. It must then investigate the desirability of such incorporation and consolidation.

It is, however, unfortunate that Blacks are not represented in Parliament and as such are not party to the discussions in standing committees. In other words, non-Blacks decide on the need of the Black majority. The sooner this aspect is addressed and Blacks are brought into the legislative process, the better. As people who were on the outside looking in till 1984, we can understand their frustrations and we have no difficulty in calling on the Government to hasten the process and clear the way for Black participation in Parliament.

When I look at the carpet before me I do not know whether the pattern in it is there by design or by coincidence but it resembles the ethnic designs that I came across in KwaNdebele. This pattern in the carpet seems to carry a message. It says to the hon the Minister of Education and Development Aid: “Welcome Mr Minister. This is your first visit to the Chamber. You and your Ministry are entrusted with the task of helping us to help you in making this country our country, a country where we can share equally and where we can strive side by side for a prosperous future for all.”

The area that we are now considering in the Schedule is land situated in the districts of Warmbaths and Cullinan in the Transvaal. This area is known as the Rust der Winter area, measuring in extent some 34 000 ha. This is reposed for incorporation into KwaNdebele.

I believe this report has already been debated in the other two Houses. I think it was The Citizen that gave a great deal of prominence to the debate in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, 16 February. Notwithstanding the publicity already given to this debate, I want to tell hon members that the standing committee did not arrive at a decision overnight. It was a long yet very interesting period of taking evidence from various organisations. In addition the committee received 17 memoranda.

Some of the members took advantage of the invitation that had been extended to visit KwaNdebele in order to acquaint themselves more fully with the needs of that homeland. Unfortunately, due to inclement weather we were unable to go to the Rust der Winter area itself. We had many answers to many unanswered questions at that stage.

I must admit that I personally was not thoroughly satisfied that the incorporation of Rust der Winter into KwaNdebele would be in the best interests of all concerned. Of course that was until discussions were held with Chief Minister Mahlangu and members of his Cabinet.

My concern was that prime agricultural land would go to waste, but I found that the Ndebele as a people are determined to succeed in agriculture and if and when incorporation does take place they are committed to deriving the maximum benefits from the irrigation farms in the Rust der Winter area which are approximately 14 000 ha in extent.

Members of Parliament who went on this tour of KwaNdebele were very pleasantly surprised to see a vineyard in the heart of KwaNdebele which reminded us of the vineyards here in the Cape. If I may be permitted, I would like to quote here from a brochure which advertises KwaNdebele. This is what appears under the heading “Agriculture”:

It is interesting to note the fields of farming. They have stock breeding, cattle and sheep, dairy products, egg production and wine production— obviously this is from the vineyards.

As far as crop production goes, it will be of interest to members to note that they go in for cotton, maize, sorghum, ground nuts, dried beans, sunflowers, buckwheat, grapes and peaches. It is therefore evident that the Ndebele are very much concerned with agriculture and are going full steam ahead in the agricultural field.

My appeal to the hon the Minister is that his department, through organised agriculture, assists the KwaNdebele Government to realise the full potential of the agricultural land in question. I said earlier the Ndebele were determined to succeed in the field of agriculture, but we must also remember that they are a very young nation when it comes to organised agriculture.

I welcome the reported statement of the hon the Minister in The Citizen, and I quote:

I can safely say that farmers were not ignored by the committee when it arrived at a decision. The Citizen gave prominence to a headline: “Farmers Ignored”. It would have been impossible to ignore the farmers when they themselves, through their unions, and as individual farmers, made representations to this committee. It was evident that the farmers themselves were split in their support for and against incorporation. I am sure that the KwaNdebele Government is an approachable Government.

If those farmers, nature conservationists and the bee-keepers who spoke of the fertile land and the natural unspoilt environment of the Rust der Winter area had to continue within the present occupations by arrangements with the KwaNdebele Government they would be welcome to stay.

It is interesting to note that during a visit to KwaNdebele, one of the Ministers in the KwaNdebele cabinet was asked about the possibility of introducing a casino in KwaNdebele. His answer was that there would never be gambling in KwaNdebele, and that if the people wanted to gamble, they could take their chances by practising farming.

After the initial settlement in the Randfontein area, KwaNdebele are now settling down after decades to a life they appear to relish. The homelands are there, Sir. They are a creation of the NP Government and because the Government created them it is the Government’s duty to ensure that sufficient land is at their disposal to cater for their needs at all times.

The question of forced removals and forced settlements does not arise, because I accept the assurance given by this hon Minister that these will not take place.

The concluding paragraph of the report reads, and I quote:

During this visit to KwaNdebele, which I spoke about, we visited many industries and met with many industrialists. We were told of the difficulties that non-Blacks experience as far as accommodation in KwaNdebele was concerned. KwaNdebele not being independent is, I believe, subject to the provisions of the Group Areas Act. We were told by industrialists that if suitable accommodation could be found and suitable housing provided, especially for Indians and Coloureds, then more industries would be attracted to KwaNdebele and that the existing industries could expand. The potential was there. Figures were given to us to prove that the move to KwaNdebele provided for an upswing in turnovers of many of the industries now located in KwaNdebele.

We were requested by Ministers of the KwaNdebele Government to convey the message, and they supported the call made by these industrialists for more housing to be provided. Bronkhorstspruit is the nearest town that could possibly house Indians working at Ekindustria. Unfortunately the accommodation available at Bronkhorstspruit does not even satisfy the needs of the residents when one considers natural growth. It is therefore absolutely necessary to provide housing as recommended in the report.

We on this side of the House have no regrets and we support the report.

Mr Chairman, it is again a pleasure to follow on the hon member Mr Seedat. Nobody, not even the hon member Mr Nowbath, can deny that the contribution made to this debate by the hon member Mr Seedat was a very sound and very reasonable contribution.

I also wish to record that I share that hon member’s sentiments concerning the Group Areas Act. However, I should like to advise that hon member to canvass these sentiments fully within his caucus.

The hon member also spoke about the question of homelands. I must agree with him here again that these are a reality which we in this House and in this country cannot ignore. My plea to the hon the Minister this afternoon is simply this: We should deal with this matter in as equitable and fair a manner as is possible in the circumstances.

I also share the hon member’s sentiments regarding the question of Black non-representation in this Parliament. I believe we all share in that, particularly the hon member for Natal Midlands. However, this is a matter that is outside the scope of this particular debate, and I should like to leave it at that.

The hon member quite correctly told us this afternoon that the Schedule refers to the area generally known as the Rust der Winter district. As all hon members are aware, this particular incorporation has aroused a fair amount of controversy. That is as it should be.

The hon member also quite correctly pointed out that this matter has engaged the standing committee for a considerable period of time. I want to say this afternoon that during all our deliberations, which were long and time-consuming, all of the various issues raised by the objectors were fully canvassed and fully ventilated.

We have an assurance from the hon the Minister that although the incorporation of Rust der Winter was not part of the original proposals, it had been part of a draft plan which had been canvassed and evaluated before June 1983.

We also have the hon the Minister’s assurance that before the announcement in December 1985 that the Government was contemplating incorporation, the landowners were consulted.

It would not be out of place for me to record that the standing committee received various conflicting and contrary submissions in this regard, particularly in regard to the manner and the content of the consultations. There was evidence that there had been no consultation. There was evidence that the consultation which took place, took place in what I would call an irregular manner. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that direct consultations did in fact take place, albeit rather later than should have been the case. Like the hon member Mr Seedat, I have an aversion to this Government’s juggling with land and with people for the sake of an ideology. However, I am persuaded that in the case of Rust der Winter the additional land is required for the people of KwaNdebele.

We were told in evidence that this tract of land comprises prime irrigated land ideal for farming, and that if it were transferred to KwaNdebele, people would abuse this land to the extent that it would become barren in a few years time. As the hon Mr Seedat indicated, I, too, am persuaded that this need not be the case, provided that there is planned development of this area and that there is planned economic farming envisaged for this area.

In this regard I am also aware that an area of 116 000 ha in the eastern part of KwaNdebele has been planned and divided into 217 economic farming units, which have been made available for trained Black KwaNdebele farmers. I accept the argument that KwaNdebele needed the agricultural area to be incorporated to make this self-governing national state, in which there has been so much upheaval recently, more viable.

I believe that it is absolutely necessary to make this area economically viable. In this regard I wish to make a plea to the hon the Minister to take all the necessary steps to ensure that, once incorporated, this area will not be allowed to deteriorate and that the new farmers will be assisted fully to establish themselves. I understand that this may be a little beyond the ambit of his responsibility, but I am persuaded that he could use his good offices with his colleague to ensure this.

The report makes a further request to the Government to pay attention to the need for housing within and on the boundaries of KwaNdebele for Blacks employed by the industrial sector in South Africa. I trust that this caveat is fully catered for and attended to by the Government. With these few remarks I would like to indicate that we also have no difficulty with this report.

Mr Chairman, enough has been said by the previous two speakers in support of their motivation for the proposals. I would like to mention an aspect which the hon the Minister might relate to whichever colleague of his is concerned. In any developing society agriculture is the base and the springboard to economic progress and development. I believe that the land in question has been extensively farmed with a variety of crops. Most importantly, when the transfer takes place the potential which has been developed is to be utilised to the optimum and, if anything, the output may even be increased. Therefore the people to whom this land is to be made available can profit from the allocation of the land. Secondly, it will prove that they too can husband the resources made available to them and enhance the production of the land of which they now become the trustees. It is important that the technical resources available should be placed at their disposal and that a modern agricultural base be set up there, so that it stands out as a shining example to all the people in and around that area. I was present at some of the extensive examinations that took place when witnesses gave evidence. Here I think of cotton, which is labour-intensive. It provides work opportunities and it goes even further than that. After the cotton has been plucked, a ginnery can be started so that opportunities are generated not only for the agricultural labourer and for the farmer, but also for the transporter and the ginner. In fact, that area has the potential of orbiting a community into the industrial era, using agriculture and an agro-based economy as a starting point. I would like to commend my submissions to the hon the Minister.

Mr Chairman, this has been a very long, drawn out matter about which a lot of discussion has taken place in this House. There were a lot of arguments for and against this measure and the committee felt that we should lead in evidence, a lot of which was heard in this matter. The 30 000 hectares referred to, belong to the Whites and this land is required for incorporation with KwaNdebele. KwaNdebele needs land and not only for agricultural purposes, but its industries are really commendable. I have seen the Ekindustria area which has a remarkable pace of development.

As the hon Mr Seedat mentioned, upon their visit to KwaNdebele various industrialists remarked that there was no accommodation for Indian and Coloured employees and employers.

Therefore, it would be appreciated if some accommodation could be provided for Indians and Coloureds for residential purposes in the KwaNdebele area because KwaNdebele is not yet an independent state and therefore it falls under the group areas system, which is of course abhorred by the entire community.

If this accommodation is provided in KwaNdebele then of course the strides which industry is presently making in KwaNdebele will be further enhanced and it will make even further progress.

The hon member Mr Seedat touched on the subject of the vineyards in the KwaNdebele area and I want to say that the only vineyard to be found in the northern part of South Africa is in KwaNdebele. I, of course, am a complete teetotaller but I understand that the wine and liquor that is produced there is of the highest quality and in no way inferior to that produced in the Cape.

You should try drinking. [Interjections.]

I shall try it one day. Mr Chairman, there were actually two very interesting submissions of memoranda by two organisations which were total opposites. One was submitted by Rust de Winter landowners who objected most vigorously to the expropriation of their properties for consolidation with KwaNdebele.

The other organisation represented owners of farms. The first organisation consisted of property owners and this one of the owners of farms. They objected most strongly to any delay in settling the Rust de Winter allocation after consolidation because they requested the Government through their committee to give effect to the hon the Deputy Minister Ben Wilkens’s offer to make the payment in 1987. This was proof of their anxiety.

Hon members can therefore see that there were two different organisations. The interesting point in this respect, however, is that people’s signatures were attached to the memoranda. The most interesting aspect of these two memoranda was that certain people who had signed one memorandum had done the same with the other too. We ultimately established that the majority wanted the allocation to be approved speedily whereas the minority did not wish the expropriation of their properties to be effected.

A very interesting memorandum was submitted by the SA Federation of Beekeepers Associations. I noted that they had the following to say:

I shall quote further from their memorandum:

That was the type of argument people put forward. If these colonies of bees were included in KwaNdebele, it would affect the quality adversely. One cannot accept this.

†If agriculture, as my good friend, the hon member for Springfield, said, is well-established with regard to the economic situation, we should have no difficulty. Why can the farming activities not be continued when it becomes a Black area? The South African Government which is now administering Rust der Winter, can still administer it even when the area is annexed to the KwaNdebele area. I see no reason why the agriculture should then not flourish and continue. The arguments advanced that if the area is given to the Black people the agriculture will die down, there will be much barren land and people will not be able to utilise the agricultural facilities, are all nonsensical arguments.

On the whole, after going through much evidence and listening to many people for and against the proposal, the committee was well-satisfied that the majority of the people, the farmers in the area, the people themselves and the various tribes all agreed that the area should be incorporated with KwaNdebele. This is what we also agree with and I think it is right that KwaNdebele should be given this area to extend its land. If it is going to be an independent country, it must be viable and this annexation will bring about that viability.

Mr Chairman, I am very grateful to the hon member for Actonville for his elucidation of the appeals contained in the memoranda submitted to the standing committee.

I want to refer briefly to the very logical manner in which he dealt with the complaints about the bees. I do not think there need be any concern about the continued practice of good bee farming under Black rule. I went to see for myself: They are Black bees; there are no White bees flying there.

What particularly struck me was the concern— and I think it is a responsible concern—of hon members with regard to the maintenance of the agricultural potential of the country.

†All hon members who kindly support this report emphasised the need for maintaining the high level of agricultural production in that area. I would like to give hon members the assurance that the main motivation for adding this intensely productive agricultural area to KwaNdebele is to expand and strengthen the economic basis of this self-governing region. Therefore it would make no sense if we were to allow the economic productivity of that area to decline. The hon member Mr Seedat also emphasised this point.

I would like to give the assurance that in 1980, when the first announcements with regard to a revised consolidation policy were made, the then Prime Minister, now the hon the State President, clearly stated that this extended programme of consolidation must be based on the condition that when non-tribal land is added to the self-governing territories, the economic productivity of that land must be maintained.

The necessary formal agreements must be entered into between the South African Government and the government of the self-governing territory concerned to ensure that. It is the intention—I gave this assurance in the other Houses too—of the South African Government that before a single acre of this Rust der Winter area is transferred, proper and appropriate agreements and arrangements should be made, firstly for the maintenance of that part of the farming which can not easily be split up among individual small commercial farmers and which require a company farming structure under the supervision of the government of KwaNdebele or its National Development Corporation. Secondly, there should be proper planning.

Hon members referred to the plan which was drawn up with regard to the agricultural utilisation of 116 000 ha which had already been added to KwaNdebele. This plan was handed over to the government of KwaNdebele in the course of July 1987. This kind of scientific planning, ensuring productivity, the economic viability of the land and a responsible settling of commercially viable individual farmers in that area, will be the precondition for handing over and incorporating this land into KwaNdebele. I would like to say that we have the full co-operation of the Chief Minister of KwaNdebele and his Cabinet in this regards.

I would also like to mention the concluding paragraph of the report which refers to the need for better housing provisions in KwaNdebele and on its border for people of colour. This will also be carefully attended to. In fact I have already brought it to the attention of the hon Chief Minister and he realises the importance of proper housing. Specialists from other population groups are involved in the economic development. so their proper housing is of importance, not only to the people concerned but also to KwaNdebele itself. Urgent attention will be given the shortage of housing in this regard, both by way of the development of facilities at Bronkhorstspruit or for that matter inside KwaNdebele.

I would like to draw the attention of hon members to the fact that the Government last year approved of a change in the Constitution Act of the National States, so as the enable the national states to make land in their regions available also for people of other population groups. Presently, according to a strict interpretation of the legislation, they are confined to using the land for the direct benefit of the Black people. For those states who want to avail themselves of it, the authority is to be introduced by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning by way of an amendment to the existing Constitution Act of the National States to make available land and the use of land in their territories to people of other population groups.

I would like to commend the hon member Mr Y I Seedat for his clear discussion of the question of agriculture and the importance of the role of agriculture in the development of the country. The hon member for Springfield also emphasised this very aptly and I would like to agree with him that in a sense agricultural development—the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition also said this—is the base or springboard for general economic development, especially in a developing area such as this.

At the same time the Government and the government of KwaNdebele have not been blind to the need for industrial development. Just recently there was a news item—unfortunately I could not lay my hands on it this morning—which announced that the National Development Corporation of KwaNdebele has entered into further loans with the Development Bank of Southern Africa to expand the industrial sites in the Ekandustria area.

What is very gratifying is that industrialists, also from Hong Kong and Taiwan, have recently visited this area to expand their investments which they already have made in the RSA. Together with the agricultural development this is a measure that enables the authorities there to create more job opportunities and to remove the necessity for so many people living in KwaNdebele of having to commute long distances every day from their homes to their work.

This is a point that has often been raised in criticism of the present situation in KwaNdebele and I know from my own experience that both their Government and my own Government are concerned about promoting the creation of job opportunities in that region in order to diminish the need for time-consuming travelling between work and home.

I am also grateful that several of the hon members referred to the fact that the standing committee took a fairly long time and devoted very thorough deliberations to this matter, because there were conflicting points of view from the area concerned. Some people were in favour of speedy incorporation and others were very strongly against it.

I should particularly like to thank members of this House who served on the standing committee for the initiative that they took to remove possible bitterness or frustration which could have resulted from the argument that, technically speaking, the consultation was not conducted in the way in which the Government had agreed with the South African Agricultural Union that this kind of consultation should be conducted. They met that problem by inviting all people who felt that they had not had a reasonable opportunity to submit their point of view either to send memorandums—of which 17 were received—or to deliver evidence in person. After this nobody can say that they were not given a fair and a reasonable chance.

It was only after all the evidence was heard that this standing committee, which all along was very critical about the Government’s handling of the matter, in terms of the majority parties, unanimously came to the agreement to accept this report. I am grateful to members for taking the time in that committee to ensure by this procedure optimum satisfaction about the handling of the matter.

Not being a teetotaller, I want to take up in a different way the hon member for Actonville’s reference to the Loopspruit vineyard which produces wine. I can assure my hon colleague sitting behind me that there is no immediate threat of the Loopspruit wines ousting the Cape wines from the South African market.

I should, however, like to say that this is not the northernmost vineyard in South Africa; my former colleague the former Minister Hendrik Schoeman is known as a very successful grape farmer in the Marble Hall area north of this area where he produces some outstanding table grapes very early in the season. Also, I happen to be the owner of a small farm in no other place than the constituency of the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in the other House, ie in the Waterberg area, and I would like to assure hon members that if there is something that the Cape farmers have to be concerned about, it is the outstanding quality of table grapes being produced in some vineyards in the Waterberg district well ahead of the time that grapes from the Western Province are put on the market.

That is conservative farming.

I think that is extremely progressive, because it is something entirely new.

I hope that this reference to the vineyards of KwaNdebele might actually in passing have emphasised an asset there which can be developed and which can, together with the initiatives in such parts of the Transvaal as Marble Hall and the Vaalwater areas in the Waterberg district, contribute an important part to agricultural production in that area.

In conclusion I would like to thank the hon member Mr Y I Seedat, the hon member for Actonville and the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition for their positive contributions and the support of this House for this report.

Recommendation 2 agreed to.

House Resumed:

Resolutions reported and adopted.

Mr Chairman, I move:

The Bill contains amendments to eight Acts administered by the Financial Institutions Office. The proposed amendments are mostly aimed at rectifying deficiencies and obscurities within the Acts. In a few cases principles are affected.

The different Acts that provide for the registration and the supervision of various types of financial institutions confer upon the Registrar in respect of a large number of matters, discretionary powers and also assign numerous duties to him. Some of these powers could be exercised and some of the duties could be performed just as well by other officers in the Office of the Registrar of Financial Institutions.

In order to arrange this the amendments to the Acts whereby delegation powers are conferred on the Registrar are included in the Bill.

By virtue of the power conferred upon him by the Pension Funds Act, the Registrar determined that the units of a unit portfolio of a unit trust scheme shall qualify as “prescribed assets” for a pension fund if such unit portfolio consists 100% of securities which rank as “prescribed assets” for pension funds, the reason being that investment in such units constitutes an indirect investment in “prescribed assets” for pension funds.

Long-term insurers then submitted representations that a similar dispensation be made to insurers if a policy issued to a pension fund is covered 100% by “prescribed assets” held by the insurer. With this in view amendments to section 17 of the Insurance Act (clause 2), and section 19 of the Pension Funds Act (clause 5) are included in the Bill.

Further proposed amendments to the Pension Funds Act related to the disposition of the benefits upon the death of a member of a pension fund. Representations have been received that the rights of a member whose dependants have been adequately provided for should in respect of the disposal of his assets prior to death be treated with more respect. It is accordingly proposed that the Act be so amended that the nominee, who is not a dependant, may share in the benefit but only after the needs of the dependants of the member have been satisfied.

Coherent with the last-mentioned amendment it is proposed that the definition of a “dependant” be extended. In accordance with the provisions of the Pension Funds Act the benefit payable on the death of a member of a pension fund shall in the first place be paid to the dependants of the member, if any. It sometime happens that the manager of the fund has reason to believe that if in a particular case the benefit is paid to a dependant who is a minor, or has no legal capacity, the parent or guardian of that dependant will spend the money to his own advantage or squander it, to the detriment of the dependant.

In order to resolve this problem, a provision is included in the Bill which will enable the fund, in its discretion, to pay the benefit into a trust to be employed on behalf of and in the best interests of the dependant.

I now come to the amendments to the Unit Trust Control Act. For the protection of the interests of investors in units of schemes, the Act requires that a management company of a unit trust scheme shall have at its disposal own resources actually employed or immediately available for employment in its unit trust business amounting to at least R600 000 in the case of a scheme in securities other than property shares and to at least R1 million in the case of a scheme in property shares. Having regard to the effect of inflation on money values and also the increasing interest in establishing unit trust schemes, it is deemed necessary that the required minimum amount be increased to R2 million in both cases.

In conclusion, I wish to refer to some of the amendments to the Stock Exchange Control Act. The definition of “securities” in the Act is being amended so that for the purposes of the Act, treasury bills, bankers’ acceptances, negotiable certificates of deposit and other similar shortterm instruments are excluded from that concept. The purpose of the amendment is to broaden the market in the mentioned instruments. The Act prohibits persons and institutions other than those specified in the Act from carrying on the business of buying and selling securities, and provides, in section 3 (7) (a) (ii), that a person shall be deemed to be carrying on that business if he, inter alia, “holds himself out to members of the public as a person who buys and sells securities”. The opinion is held in certain quarters that the expression “members of the public” does not include juristic persons and it is proposed that the words “to members of the public”, in section 3 (7) (a) (ii), be deleted.

In order to control the undesirable practice of buying securities on unauthorised credit, the Act has since 1971 provided that where a buyer of securities fails to make payment within the period fixed in terms of the Act, the stockbroker shall sell the shares purchased, and also sell any other securities belonging to such buyer or held in safe custody for the client, until the buyer’s debt has been fully settled. This has disciplined buyers to pay promptly for securities purchased on their behalf on the Stock Exchange. However, in a recent judgement the Supreme Court rejected this interpretation.

In the circumstances it is proposed that the provisions concerned be amended so as to compel the broker also to sell other securities which belong to the buyer and are in the possession or custody of the broker, in order to settle the debt.

Clauses 3 and 6 of the Bill have been amended by the Standing Committee on Finance. I am prepared to accept the amendments.

Mr Chairman, we have just heard the Second Reading speech on the Financial Institutions Second Amendment Bill as proposed by the hon the Deputy Minister of Finance. The Standing Committee on Finance deliberated on this particular Financial Institutions Amendment Bill for a very long period last year. It is of a very technical nature, as the hon the Minister has already mentioned in his Second Reading speech. It tries to consolidate some eight different Acts, from financial institutions to pension funds and insurance funds, and the committee heard a lot of evidence from the various associations and organisations representing the broad spectrum of finance. The standing committee effected a lot of changes to the original Act as it was first mooted.

Here I wish to pay tribute to a member of the standing committee, Mr Schwarz, who played a very important part in bringing about these particular amendments to the Act.

Mr Chairman, this side of the House fully supports this Bill.

Mr Chairman, the hon the Deputy Minister has expressed the contents of the amendment in detail. As the hon member for Laudium has said, the Standing Committee on Finance went through this Bill thoroughly during the 1987 session. The Financial Institutions Second Amendment Bill provides for a number of Acts to be amended. The Committee on Finance dealt with this and amongst these amendments are some of the following: The Insurance Act of 1943; the Pension Funds Act of 1956; the Friendly Societies Act of 1956; the Unit Trusts Control Act of 1981; the Participation Bonds Act of 1981; the Inspection of Financial Institutions Act of 1984; and the Stock Exchanges Control Act of 1985. I fully support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, this Bill came before the Standing Committee on Finance as stated by the hon member for Laudium. The matter was fully deliberated. It is an omnibus Bill which deals with a number of issues concerning financial institutions such as the Registrar of Insurance. This Registrar of Insurance is given certain powers to assign some of his functions and duties to any officer or an employee of the public service. Similarly the Registrar of Pension Funds and the registrars of other institutions can delegate their powers in order to lighten their burden.

One important aspect is that it makes it very clear that a closed corporation is prevented from acting as a trustee of a unit trust. It makes very important provisions in as far as the Stock Exchange Control Act is concerned. Over and above all these provisions, it updates various financial institutions’ acts and I therefore support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, I fully concur with all the previous speakers. The most outstanding feature of this Bill is the amendment provided in Clause 3, which was brought forward by the Standing Committee on Finance.

Hitherto certain irregularities have taken place. It was possible for a man to be legally married, have children and later on to take in a mistress or girlfriend or whatever, nominating her, his last bedmate, a dependant. He might even have been a widower, because even they did it all wrong. This amendment, however, is a far-reaching control on those irregularities. The standing committee did an indepth study and a thorough investigation of witnesses took place.

There were objections to certain definitions, such as the concise definition of “dependence” as defined in the Bill. Many fine institutions came forward and objected. I do not see the reason why they had to object but nonetheless, this Bill went through. I would not say it had an easy passage through the standing committee. It had a stormy passage, with a great deal of cross examination and re-examination of witnesses. Ultimately, however, consensus was reached on this Bill and I have no qualms about supporting it.

Mr Chairman, I am not a member of the standing committee before which this Bill was discussed but I notice that Clause 1 of this Bill deals with amendments to the Insurance Act. We have heard this afternoon from the hon member for Laudium that this Bill was deliberated upon at great length in the standing committee. In reading Clause 1, I think it is fair comment to say that this Clause was in fact initiated as a result of the AA Mutual Insurance debacle.

As all hon members in this House are aware, there was a commission of inquiry into that debacle and I think it is also fair comment to say that the standard of control that ought to have been exercised by officials of the department insofar as the affairs of the AA Mutual Insurance Company were concerned, was lower than we would have expected under reasonable circumstances. What I am asking is whether this is not another case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted?

What I should like to ask the hon the Minister— and I trust he will take it in the spirit in which it is meant—is this: Knowing full well the misery which that debacle caused in many poor households, what has the hon the Minister done, apart from submitting this piece of legislation, to ensure that we do not have another debacle in the future? What I am asking is, what steps has the hon the Minister taken to ensure that full and regular checks by members of his department are conducted in order to ensure that the requirements in respect of the assets that are required to be kept in terms of the Insurance Act, are in fact adhered to?

Mr Chairman, I shall start with the hon member for Springfield. With regard to his question about the AA Mutual, the answer is yes, the Government has appointed a one man commission consisting of Mr Justice Melamet to investigate the whole situation. According to my information Judge Melamet’s report has been submitted to the hon the State President—he was a presidential appointee—and we expect to receive the report from the hon the State President’s office in the very near future.

I should also like to mention that the Dr Stals task group on the Margo report invited the short term insurers to give evidence in regard to the recommendations contained in the Margo Report.

The recommendation contained in the evidence they gave before us, was that we should create a crisis fund. We still have to discuss the proposal and decide on whether we are going to accept it. However, I have quoted these examples to illustrate that we believe in protecting our people. As I say, I think we are looking forward to receiving Judge Melamet’s recommendations, and after the report has been evaluated we shall definitely look forward to implementing those recommendations accepted by Government. We are therefore working on different methods to protect our people against a repetition of the AA Mutual Insurance debacle.

I wish to thank hon members who took part. It was a very technical and difficult Bill and the standing committee, according to my information, did a good job. I know that clause 3 gave much trouble. There were so many actors involved, like the dependent, the unknown dependent, the nominee, the independent and the manager of the pension fund. However, in the end the standing committee came forward with a solution and a proposal.

I would like to point out that the Bill before us covers eight different Acts. This is a normal procedure. With economic growth we will always discover new problems and weaknesses and then come back to Parliament to ensure a dynamic and effective legal system to protect our people. This is so important. We have to protect the saver, the family and our financial institutions, have neutrality between different organisations, between pension funds and insurance companies, and have good administration in the department or financial institutions.

I again wish to thank hon members who took part for their inputs regarding the Bill before us.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move:

The Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board was established by the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Act, 1951, with powers, amongst others, to regulate the registration of accountants and auditors who wish to place their services at the disposal of the public. The members of the Board are appointed by the hon the Minister selected from certain groups of persons described by the Act. It is now considered desirable that the Auditor-general, whose office is not included in the above-mentioned group, should serve on the Board as a close liaison between himself and the accounting and auditing profession, to keep his office up to date with developments taking place and expertise required within the profession. The proposed amendments therefore make provision for the permanent appointment of the Auditorgeneral to the Board.

The Bill also provides for the deletion of the reference to the Rhodesia Society of Chartered Accountants, which society has in the meantime changed its name.

The hon the Minister, after the amendment comes into effect, retains the power to make such an appointment in terms of the general provision of section 3(6)(a) of the Act.

The amendment proposed in clause 2 is merely a rectification to provide that payment due to the State be paid to the Treasury instead of to the hon the Minister.

Section 21 presently empowers the Board to prescribe examinations and examination fees for articled clerks and other persons who intend applying for registration. The Board should therefore also have the power to prescribe the necessary syllabus for such examinations. The amendments widen the Board’s power in this respect.

The Act presently prohibits the Board from registering a person who has been sentenced in respect of certain offences to imprisonment or to a fine of R50. Owing to the increased level of fines experienced for more than 30 years in the past, it is proposed that this now be increased to R300.

An auditor or accountant is exempted by the Act from claims for damages in respect of reporting a matter of irregularity in the ordinary course of his duties. The proposed amendments extend this exemption to include a report or declaration made to the Board in respect of the conduct of another accountant or auditor.

The Act requires that if an accountants’ and auditors’ firm practises under a trade name, the names of all partners should appear on its letterhead. Certain firms have a large number of partners and as their names take up a large part of the letterhead and there are frequent changes in partnerships which necessitates the reprinting of letterheads, the amendment now provides an alternative to allow firms to disclose the names of their managing or resting partners only. The proposed Amendment Bill has been amended by the deletion of clause 5 by the Standing Committee on Finance. I am prepared to accept this amendment.

Mr Chairman, I think the hon the Deputy Minister of Finance in his Second Reading speech explained exactly what the whole Bill envisages. It merely contains some amendments that are made to the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Act. It makes provision for the constitution of the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board and it also provides for higher fines because of the inflation rate. I feel there is nothing more that we can say about this Bill. It is a straightforward Bill that had an easy passage through the Standing Committee on Finance. We therefore support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, from this side of the House we have no problem in accepting the Bill.

Mr Chairman, this is also a very important Bill which updates the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Bill. An important provision is to bring the Auditor-General in as a member of the Board. Apart from him, the Minister selects four other persons to serve on this Board. Another important provision is that the Board shall refund the Board members who carry out important duties. They will be paid subsistence and transport allowances from the public fund. The Treasury will be permitted in terms of the new legislation to recover expenses from the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board. The members will therefore be paid allowances for carrying out their functions.

The Board will also be able to set up syllabuses for articled clerks. Provision is also made for anybody who has been convicted of theft, fraud, forgery or uttering a forged document or perjury, and sentenced in respect thereof to imprisonment without the option of a fine or to a fine exceeding R300. Provision is also made to increase a stipulated fine of R200 to R2 000. The members of the Standing Committee on Finance questioned this provision and made all sorts of enquiries to ensure the justification for the increase of the fine from R200 to R2 000.

This important Bill updates the various existing provisions. It also introduces important provisions insofar as the appointment of members is concerned. The Bill had no difficulty in receiving the approval of the Standing Committee on Finance.

Mr Chairman, the sum of all that the hon member Mr Thaver said was that this Bill enables the Public Accountants’ and Auditors’ Board to keep a more stringent control over any possible misdemeanour by practising accountants and auditors. All the provisions introduce amendments to the principal Act. There was some disagreement in the standing committee and it was discussed for a very long time by the committee. The Standing Committee on Finance and I have no objections in supporting the Bill.

Mr Chairman, I wish to thank the hon members who took part and who also took part in the standing committee. I must say that the Public Accounts’ and Auditors’ Board has its house in order and we are proud of the accountants in South Africa and the standard that they maintain.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move:

The Bill entails amendments to two sections of the South African Transport Services Act, 1981 (Act No 65 of 1981).

In an endeavour to render a more streamlined service at lower cost levels to its clients, the SATS finds it necessary to close uneconomic lines. It is not a secret that SATS have been losing millions of rands as far as the operation of branch lines are concerned. One such instance was the closure of the Port Shepstone-Harding branch line in November 1986. The rail service was replaced by a road transport service. Obviously when one cuts down on one’s service one must try to provide a substitute and this was done in this case.

As this is the last narrow gauge branch line in Natal, the Alfred County Railway Committee requested that the privatisation of the branch line be considered from the tourist point of view. Therefore, instead of closing the branch line entirely it was closed for a time. The line will now be used again by a company other than the SATS.

This proposed amendment to the Act is therefore necessary to facilitate the privatisation of branch lines. May I say that in its original form this particular Bill only referred to the Port Shepstone-Harding line. Now it goes much further and is now an enabling piece of legislation.

Lastly, I would like to say that the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications has discussed the aspects surrounding the proposed amendment at length, and as we have done in the past—I think it is the occasion to do so again—I should like to thank the hon member for Primrose and all his committee members as well as hon members of this House for the objective manner in which the deliberations took place.

Mr Chairman, before I deal with the Bill I should like to welcome the hon the Deputy Minister and his senior management staff to this new House of ours, and seeing as this is the first Transport Bill before this House this year I want to place on record the condolences and sympathies of all hon members of this House to all family members of the crew and passengers who lost their lives in the Helderberg disaster.

The provisions of this Bill affect the South African Transport Services Act no 65/1981 and amends section 9 so as to enable the SATS to lease or sell certain branch lines which are no longer economically viable. This I believe is the beginning of the SATS privatisation programme and I welcome it.

The capital has already been spent to set up these lines and they are now no longer in use. They have served their purpose and at present these lines will not generate any income.

By leasing or selling these lines, the SATS finances will improve, and it will recoup some of the initial capital outlay.

Sometimes we are told that we have come to the end of the road. Here I think the SATS has come to the end of the line in certain respects. Train services over the Port Shepstone-Harding branch line were terminated in November 1986 and a substituting road transport service was introduced.

As the hon the Deputy Minister outlined in his Second Reading speech the Alfred County Railway Committee requested the SATS to consider the privatisation of this line, and since it is one of the last narrow gauge lines in Natal and of great value to the Natal South Coast region as far as tourism is concerned, the SATS have agreed to investigate the request.

This amendment is necessary in order to facilitate the privatisation of branch lines from a legal point of view. The proposed amendments to the South African Transport Services Act, Act 65 of 1981, are therefore posed in general organisational terms.

The Alfred County Railway Committee expresses concern that if the line is not reopened soon, its credibility will be adversely affected in the Port Shepstone-Harding regions and in the South Coast region as a whole. Furthermore the reopening of the line is indeed necessary.

I do hope that the Alfred County Railway Committee will see fit to keep all the coaches free of segregation. I am sure that my colleague on the other side, the hon member for Natal South Coast, will see to it in his constituency.

In Umzinto there are many railway cottages standing empty as a result of the curtailment of services, and I appeal to the hon the Minister to sell these houses to homeless people in my constituency. This is the third request that I make in this respect since I came to Parliament.

Finally, I believe the Umzinto railway station is over a hundred years old and therefore I should like the hon the Deputy Minister to declare it a national monument. We on this side of the House support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, this provision in the Bill is warmly welcomed by the opposition. I notice some very familiar faces from the past on the other side of the House. However, they now hold new positions and we would like to extend our congratulations and wish the new general manager, Dr Moolman, as well as the new director-general for Transport Affairs well. With the new energetic look of Dr Moolman and his ideas and his longstanding experience, I am sure that it is going to be fruitful to Transport Affairs as a whole.

We also have a new general manager. He has not even been in the transport business for a year, however, with the wide knowledge that he has of transport affairs, and having been chairman of the standing committee, he is also going to be a tremendous asset to Transport Services as a whole. We also have a new Minister and with the new team that we have I am sure the spirit is high and that this Bill before us is the first sign of rationalising all unnecessary, unwarranted and costly services that have prevailed in the past.

I think the hon the Deputy Minister has ably explained the reason for this Bill. When one looks at it, one notices that all unnecessary services are being rationalised.

If other services that are on the books have cost SATS enormous amounts of money and have been operated at great cost, this should be examined in depth. One hopes that whereas this is being investigated as being one of the necessary services, it will not be too long before the others are brought before us so that we, too, will be able to decide whether this is in the interests of South Africa.

Mr Chairman, I also wish to take this opportunity of complimenting and congratulating the new General Manager of the SATS, Dr AT Moolman. He has taken over from Dr Grové, and I think it was a very good choice.

I think he is competent enough to run the department. This is his first appearance here and his performance in the standing committee proved that he has the ability to serve as general manager.

In so far as the Bill is concerned, it is the beginning of privatisation of some of the assets of the SATS. I think that the SATS is holding the monopoly of a lot of services that must now be privatised. One of those services is a road transport system—I think they are holding the monopoly with that system and it is high time that the SATS gave the entire road transport system to private enterprise. I think the hon the Minister will agree that they have now opened up the doors. The Bill enables certain private lines which have been running at a loss to be privatised. As regards other services, if the SATS give them to private enterprise, not only will they be run on the most profitable lines by private enterprise, but there will be no need for the taxpayer to fund the SATS.

This is a very nice Bill; it is welcomed by the standing committee and it has received their approval. I, too, want to take this opportunity to join the hon the Deputy Minister in complimenting Dr Welgemoed, the chairman of the standing committee, on the ability he showed in dealing with the Bill and the manner in which he achieved consensus among the various Houses and the way the Bill was given approval at standing committee level.

Mr Chairman, I cannot agree with the hon member Mr Thaver that the Bill before us is a “nice” Bill! I believe that it is a very good Bill, and a very progressive Bill.

I merely wish to place on record that we in the PRP have no problems with this Bill, and in fact we fully support the Bill.

There is just one other facet I should like to highlight, one which is a spin-off of this Bill. I refer to the question of the line from Port Shepstone to Harding. As all hon members are aware, that line has now been sold to private enterprise, and in fact I read the other day a prospectus has been made public in regard to the development and exploitation of the potential that exists with regard to that line.

To me this merely highlights what can be done if enterprising people—people with insight and imagination—are able to do with the assets that are available to them. This is important because I believe that if the prospectus is correct in that regard, then there is a lot of money to be made. I was wondering why that money was not made hitherto by the hon the Minister’s department!

The principle embodied in this Bill is a good one, as I have indicated, and I have no problems with it. We support it, and in fact we would like to see the enabling provision of the Bill being fully exploited.

Mr Chairman, I regard the proposals in this Amendment Bill as sound management to operate services economically. There was some apprehension about those people were who involved in services which are being discontinued, especially in the rural areas. It was felt that operations by private enterprise might increase the costs and that fares might become excessive. However, we were assured that competitiveness will prevail and that those people who are using the services will not suffer. Upon our questions satisfactory explanations were given and I am quite satisfied that this is a step in the right direction in terms of deregulation and privatisation. I support this Bill.

Mr Chairman, as already expounded by other hon members, this Bill embodies the concept of deregulation and privatisation. I believe that this Bill has also been introduced because of the Government’s White Paper on National Transport Policies. In that White Paper the concept of what is embodied in the memorandum of this Bill is fully spelt out. It is in keeping with the hon the State President’s policy with regard to privatisation, as stated at the opening of Parliament and which we welcome. It also addresses the issue of terminating the uneconomical services and streamlining of operations. For these positive aspects of the Bill, I support it.

Mr Chairman, I shall be brief. As the hon the Minister indicated, the legislation before us is an enabling one. One of the first things to be disposed of is the railway line from Port Shepstone to Harding. I am pleased to learn from the hon member for Southern Natal that the activities in that area in regard to the operation of its railway system are in top gear. In fact, there is a tremendous demand from tourists for the passenger train services, the “Banana Express”. Moves are afoot to utilise the availability of timber in that area to the maximum, so that the line will become profitable. I wish the company that has taken over well, so that private enterprise can demonstrate that with concerted effort and concentration of activities in an area, it can be turned into a profitable operation.

I would like to end with an anecdote. Many years ago, when I was a much younger man, reference was made in one of our Natal newspapers to the train service from Port Shepstone to Harding. Apparently the goods train was puffing away along its winding route and the engine driver spotted an African maid with a bundle on her head and two under her arms, walking pretty fast. As the engine puffed past her he said: “Anny, would you like to have a lift today?” She answered: “No, thank you Baas. I am in too much of a hurry”. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I would like to thank the hon members for the support they have given to this Bill. This was quite in keeping with the spirit that prevailed in the standing committee. The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition concluded his speech with a charming anecdote about a train puffing along a particular narrow gauge line.

I remember an old uncle who had great difficulty in stopping his motor car. He also had a laundry girl living not too far away from the farm, and his car could not stop. He used to have a little Black fellow in the back of the car and the moment they passed this particular house he would say to him: “Nou kan jy maar gooi”. The Black fellow would then throw the bundle of laundry and the girl, who was standing at the side of the road, would catch it. That is more or less the same type of thing as happened to the woman along the line who was doing the laundry in his story.

I should also like to express my gratitude for the good wishes expressed. I know that Dr Moolman cannot reciprocate from where he is sitting but I do know that all hon members—and I should like to endorse that—wish him well in his new post. He is certainly well qualified for this particular post. He has been in the service for many years and has rendered excellent service to the SATS and so there is no doubt in our mind that he will be a worthy successor to Dr Grové, who retired earlier this year. We wish him and his family well and we wish him everything of the best in this new post.

We also realise that he is entering this particular chapter in his career at a time when we are poised to accelerate privatisation, and this will mean that the SATS as an organisation will have to compete to a far greater extent and that it will have to adapt itself adequately in order to meet those new demands. I think in that regard, too, Dr Moolman and his management team are well equipped to ascertain what those requirements will be in the time that lies ahead.

The hon member for Umzinto is unfortunately not here. He has apologised for not being here. He has to be absent, as his son is apparently very ill. I hope that his son will recuperate and that everything will go well for him.

The hon member raised the issue of segregation. This company, the Alfred County Railway Committee, will obviously have to give consideration to this particular issue. However, I have no doubt in my mind that they will not have segregated coaches and that nothing of that nature will take place on this particular line. They have full control and they can do as they like. As far as I am concerned, I hope, from a tourist point of view, that there will be no segregation on this particular line.

The hon member also expressed his regret and his sympathy with those members of the public and staff who lost their lives in the Helderberg disaster. I should like to thank him for endorsing the views of everyone in South Africa. I think this has certainly been one of those disasters that have shaken us all to such an extent that we have realised that this is something that has never happened here before and that if we could find ways and means of determining how the accident happened, we should certainly do our level best to do so. If there should be a recurrence of this sort of disaster, then obviously we should like to be able to say that we have done everything within our power to make South African Airways as safe as possible for the public.

The hon member for Havenside also wished us and Dr Moolman well.

The hon member Mr Thaver made the point about road transport. This case it is definitely an example of how we are trying to give members of the public a chance, through private companies, if they so wish, to operate a service to the public. As far as road transport is concerned, I think it is known to hon members that the SATS has indicated that it is not going to increase its activities.

The hon member for Springfield gave his support because he feels that it is a good progressive Bill. It does not matter whether it is progressive or not; I think it is a sign of the times. We also thank that hon member.

The hon member for Merebank also gave his support and the hon member for Lenasia Central made the point that it is in line with the White Paper on Transport. If I may make a general remark as far as that is concerned: I hope that the time will come that the SATS will be adequately compensated for all those services which it renders today and which we regard as uneconomical. If we were adequately compensated by somebody, whether it be the hon the Minister of Finance or somebody else, that would obviously be the day that things are going very well for the SATS. If not, I think we should also be in a position to say that we are not prepared to render those services which are uneconomical. At this stage we cannot do so. It is simply impossible, because there are well over 1 000 000 commuters that we have to transport every day. We are losing millions on this. This is a known fact and we have said this before in the various Houses. If we were adequately compensated, we would have no real difficulty.

Lastly, I would like to thank hon members again. It is indeed a very great honour to have the opportunity of pilotting a Bill in this new House. I would also like to take the opportunity on behalf of the Ministry to wish hon members well in this House. May all the debates which they will have here benefit South Africa and all those people we represent in our different Houses.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move:

Mr Chairman, I would like to start by adding to what my colleague, the hon the Deputy Minister of Transport Affairs, said. It is really an honour for me personally to be able to be with hon members in their new Chamber and I would like to wish the hon the Chairman, the Ministers’ Council, the hon the Chairman of the Ministers’ Council and all hon members good luck in this beautiful new Chamber.

During the course of 1987 and with reference to the activities of the Secretariate for Multilateral Co-operation in Southern Africa (SECOSAF), South Africa entered into discussions with the TBVC states for the purpose of examining the possible acceptance by these states of uniform legislation in regard to the immunities of foreign states. During the discussions the present legislation was thoroughly gone through and the necessity of bringing about certain amendments was established.

It is those amendments which are contained in the amending Bill before this House. The proposed amendments are of a purely technical nature and do not introduce any new principles into the principal Act.

The underlying philosophy of modern relations between states is the equality of states. This is in terms of customary international law. No state is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of another state in respect of a dispute between such states, because that would amount to one state deciding a dispute between itself and the other state. The exceptions to the immunities of foreign states for which the principal Act provides are in general only applicable in respect of disputes between individuals or non-state entities, such as companies, in South Africa and foreign states. This basic principle is however not clearly reflected in the Principal Act of 1981.

Clause 1 of the present amending Bill seeks to state this principle unequivocally by inserting a new section 2(4) into the principal Act. The word “foreign” in sections 9 and 10 of the principal Act is also inconsistent with this principle and is therefore deleted by clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill.

The principal Act provides for the service of process on a foreign state and prescribes that service shall be deemed to have been effected when the process concerned is received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the foreign state. This approach makes it difficult in practice to determine the exact date of service, especially where the co-operation of such a state is lacking. In order to accord greater protection to the individual or company, section 13 of the principal Act is amended by clause 4 of the amending Bill so as to fix the date of service as the date of delivery of the process to the foreign ministry. This provides a greater measure of certainty. Provision is also made for South Africa to conclude an agreement with another state in which an alternative procedure may be agreed on.

Clause 5 of the present amending Bill introduces two amendments. Firstly, the word “property” in section 14(l)(b) of the principal Act can be interpreted restrictively as to include only real property. The underlying principal, however, is that no property of a foreign state, be it real or merely a right or interest, is subject to the provisions of section 14 of the principal Act. In order to remove any possible ambiguity in this regard, the words “or any right or interest” are inserted in subsection 1(b).

As a foreign state is a peregrinus (or alien) in the area of jurisdiction of a South African court, special rules of procedure apply. In addition to the ordinary rules in terms of which such court may have jurisdiction, it is necessary for some property, right or interest of such peregrinus to be attached, either to confirm jurisdiction, should it exist, or to found jurisdiction where it does not exist. Section 14(l)(b) of the principal Act deals only with attachment to found jurisdiction and it is necessary to include attachment to confirm jurisdiction. This is the second amending introduced by clause 5 of the amending Bill. Clause 6 of the amending Bill merely effects consequential amendments which arise from the previous amendment.

In summary, it may be said that the Bill brings about only certain technical amendments to an Act which governs a complicated area of law and which may have far-reaching implications, not only for foreign states in South Africa but also for our own citizens who may be seriously prejudiced if there are flaws in the Act. I trust that in the light of this all hon members of the House will support the amending Bill.

Mr Chairman, this is an uncomplicated piece of legislation and is the result of efforts to create uniform legislation in the SA-TBVC states.

Current legislation makes no specific or relevant mention of the fact that sovereign states may not institute legal action in their own courts against another sovereign constitutional state. Explanation has now become essential, something which the legislation before us does most explicitly. It provides for this.

There are also minor changes and I may say that this entire piece of legislation was reported without any amendments. The committee therefore adopted it as introduced. The minor changes made are in section 4 and section 6 in which the name of the Department of Foreign Affairs had to be corrected because the previous name of Foreign Affairs was Foreign Affairs and Information. We no longer add the word “Information”. The Department of Foreign Affairs is a department in its own right now. That is what necessitated this amendment.

In section 4 and section 6 it was also necessary to replace the concept of “receive”—as the hon the Deputy Minister has just explained here—in the principal Act with the words “delivered to” as this is essential when the document has actually come into the possession of the person or the State. That is why these changes had to be made.

The one very important point was that section 2 of the principal Act was amended by the insertion of subsection 4. This was merely in clarification. The very important point I now wish to put to you is that the enforcement of a sentence or arbitration or its allocation—“to found or confirm the jurisdiction” as it is phrased—no longer applies in this legislation because the English text reads:

†This is very important—

…or for its attachment. This is for its attachment in order to found or confirm the jurisdiction. This was a very important amendment.

Sit down!

I shall, just give me a chance. I am on my feet now and I wish to speak. As soon as I have finished I shall resume my seat and you may have the opportunity of speaking. [Interjections.]

This legislation was adopted in its entirety by the standing committee. We accept this as such and support it.

Before resuming my seat—I should actually have done this earlier—I wish to welcome the hon the Deputy Minister to our new House where we hope we shall see him frequently.

Mr Chairman, unlike the hon member for Actonville, I shall be brief, as was the passage of this particular Bill before the relevant standing committee.

This Bill is based on the equality of states. It is in conformity with international law and I understand that it is in fact based on the British statute. We have no problems at all with this Bill and we support it.

Mr Chairman, this Bill makes provision for greater clarity on certain aspects of international law. It is a principle of international law that one state cannot subject another state to its courts and legal procedures. This was not too clear in the existing Act and therefore we welcome the amendment. We support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, I should like to thank hon members for their support of this measure. I should also like to thank the hon member for Actonville for his comprehensive speech.

I want to say to hon members that this is indeed a very technical measure. However, it is a very important measure as far as international law is concerned. I personally learned a great deal by studying this measure, and I am sure that after having looked at this measure, all the hon members know a little more about international law, with which we do not often deal.

*This will clear up the position of sovereign states.

†I also want to say that I really appreciate the fact that this measure could go through the standing committee without any problems. I should also like to thank my officials for a thorough piece of work.

The hon member for Actonville is quite correct in saying that the amendment to section 14 is very important.

I should like to thank the hon member for Springfield for his contribution. He is perfectly correct in referring to the fact that it is based on the equality of states and on British law; that is a very interesting point. Most of our law in this country is based on the Roman-Dutch Law. However, we have also inherited certain aspects from British law, and I think that this is a good example of that.

I should also like to thank my friend the hon member for Havenside for his contribution.

Mr Chairman, I should also like to thank you for the way in which you dealt with this measure.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move:

Agreed to.