Mr. Chairman, when the House adjourned last night I had posed the question whether the policeman was the symbol of White authority or whether he was looked upon as the protector to whom the individual could turn for assistance. In my view the policeman should be looked upon as a symbol of authority by White and Black in South Africa. Secondly, it is essential that the policeman be looked upon as a protector. I must stress that in my view there is a social contract between the people and the State in terms of which all of them, whether they be White or Black, are entitled to protection from the State.

One expresses concern that if the policeman is not looked upon as the protector, the issue of law and order, particularly amongst Blacks in South Africa, and the symbolism which should be attached to the police, may in fact reach a very serious point. The stress appears to be at the moment, as far as the protection of the image of the police is concerned, to be more on the enforcement of the law than on what should essentially be a body of law which is part of the social contract and in terms of which the policeman acts as the protector of the individual.

The policeman’s job is to ensure that the individual’s rights, in terms of the social contract, are enforced, not necessarily against the State. His job is also to ensure that anybody whose rights are entrenched, is protected. I believe that the image of a policeman as an instrument of authority seeking to impose its will upon an unwilling people is disastrous for a proper relationship between the police and the people. I would like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to project the image of the policeman in South Africa correctly. There should, in fact, be a public relations campaign in order to project the policeman in South Africa as the protector of all the people. That is what I believe to be the task of the hon. Minister and his department. [Interjections.] There is a tremendous amount of noise here. I do not know what it is all about. The truth is that if one does not believe that that is how the image of how a policeman should be projected in South Africa, there is something wrong with one and not something wrong with the policeman. With great respect, this is what is needed in South Africa. I believe there is a great danger that the image of the policeman is distorted and is seen in the incorrect light. I want to stress it, so that there will be no misunderstanding, that I am talking now about the ordinary policeman, the man who is doing his job, the man who patrols the streets, who investigates, who has to make the arrests, who has to face being shot at, and who has to face the chance of being stabbed.

That man is an ordinary South African doing his job of work. He is an ordinary man, and he often does his job under very difficult circumstances. He should be projected as the protector of the people, the man to whom people can turn when they are in distress. [Interjections.] If this is not done, and if the policeman is projected as an authority who is to be feared, rather than as an individual to whom people can turn for help, a disservice is being done to the country. I believe that the hon. the Minister should devote time, energy and money to see to it that that image is correctly projected to all South Africans.

I want to stress, so that there is no misunderstanding between us, that we are all parties to the social contract with the State in terms of which our people are entitled to protection. I seek that protection for my voters in my constituency. I want to see policemen on the streets of Yeoville patrolling their beats. I want the “bobbie” to be patrolling a beat in Yeoville. [Interjections.] I want the policeman to know the local people, I want the local people to know him, because I want the right relationship to be built up. I know that in the urban areas of South Africa today the old relationship between the people and the police no longer exists. Today it is an impersonal relationship. In the old times when I grew up …

Order! The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: How can my time be expired? I have not spoken for ten minutes.

Order! The hon. member spoke for five minutes before the adjournment of the House yesterday.

No, Sir, the rules prescribe that one starts again.

Order! I have given my ruling! I call upon the hon. member for Pretoria East to speak.

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order : Is the hon. member entitled to say, after you have given your ruling, that it is “nonsense”?

Order! Did the hon. member say, after I had given my ruling, that it was “nonsense”?

Mr. Chairman, I said that it was a wrong ruling. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that immediately.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw it. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, now that I am finally able to start my speech, I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville that basically I have no fault to find with his concluding remarks. If that is the attitude of the hon. member towards the average policeman, then in fact we have the same opinion on the matter. I, too, should like to discuss and dwell for a moment on the disturbing phenomenon in present day society of a grave lack of esteem and respect for the policeman and for what the average South African policeman does. These days, we in South Africa take policemen for granted. We take it for granted that the policeman is State-owned and has become Government property. We no longer appreciate the fact that he is the man who protects hearth and home, our families and our lives. We erect monuments, statues and memorial stones for those who died in wars of the past, but nowhere in South Africa has a monument been erected for the unknown policeman who died in an attempt to maintain law and order in society. I believe the time has come for us to do this.

I have done a little research into the expression “police” or “police force”. I found that the expression apparently had its origin in the ancient Greek expression “pelis” or later “polis”, which meant town or city. The Police Force therefore had its origin in the old town guard of the Greek town or the old Greek city state. From this the expression “politia” or “politeia” or “police” or “polisie” then evolved. When one looks at the description of the task and function of the policeman, one finds that various terminologies are used in the various legal systems of the world, but that the fundamental or primary elements are always there.

These fundamental elements are always expressive of the fact that the function and task of the police is to be an organization or Government department established for the maintenance of law and order or the preservation of peace and security in society. If that, then, is the task and function of the S.A. Police, then surely it is also our task as a Government to establish the necessary machinery for the protection of these people who maintain law and order and authority in South Africa. We cannot stand by and allow these people to be assaulted, insulted and ridiculed in the eyes of society. That is why it is as well that we have already accepted legislation in this House which makes assault on a policeman an offence on its own. I am also particularly pleased that no option of a fine is allowed where this type of assault is concerned, but only imprisonment. If one looks at the statistics, it is extremely shocking to see how many assaults take place on members of the Police Force every year. One finds that in 1972 there were 5 000 cases of assaults on policemen and of resisting arrest. Last year it had already increased to 6 091 cases, 5 705 of which were referred to the courts. What is even more shocking, is the number of policemen who lose their lives annually in the execution of their duties. In this year’s report we find that 20 members of the Police Force lost their lives in the execution of their duties. These are merely the cold facts contained in the report. However, we never read about the human suffering, the widows, the orphans and the relatives who are left behind and the hundreds of policemen who are maimed and permanently disabled.

The question now arises as to what one can do to allow the policeman to regain his rightful place in society. I believe there are three basic points which one can examine in that regard. In the first place, we as ordinary people must instil in our children the right image of a policeman, without necessarily filling the child with fear and trembling for the policeman as was the case with some of us. We must teach the child that he has to respect and recognize the policeman. In that regard, our schools can also do a great deal. Surely it is unfitting for us to be so quick to point a finger at the Black children of Soweto and Guguletu when they taunt the police and stone them, when our own children and young men are the people who pelt the police with tangerines and oranges and take policemen’s hats and play rugby with them. Is it not we who ought to set an example?

A second aspect is the Press. It is true that there has been an improvement in recent times. However, certain newspapers have always succeeded in displaying a photograph of a policeman using violence or taking into custody someone who is resisting arrest. However, we never see a photograph of the preceding scene where the same policeman has received a blow on the head, been stoned or had his face spat on.

There is also a third aspect we should not lose sight of and that is that the police are being belittled and regarded with mistrust because certain hon. members of this House are assisting in the undermining of and mental assaults on the policeman. In this regard, I am referring specifically to hon. members of the PRP.

I have made an analysis of the questions asked last year in relation to police matters. Ninety-nine questions were asked in that regard and 64 of those were asked by members of the PRP. The hon. member for Houghton asked 30 of those 64 questions. No one would have blamed her if these questions had stemmed from concern on her part about law and order in South Africa and the weal and woe of the policeman. What was the substance of the questions, however? Only one of those 30 questions concerned the welfare of members of the Police Force, viz. how many of them had died or been injured in the execution of their duties. I believe that in her heart she was really very sad that more of them had not died in the execution of their duties. All the other questions concerned other matters, e.g. how many complaints arose out of assaults by the police, how many adults had been killed and injured by the police, how many minors had been wounded and how many policemen had been found guilty of assault or culpable homicide. One asks oneself why the hon. member asked those questions in the House. In her speech yesterday, she defended a communist document by interpreting the meaning of a statement in a communist document in this House. One asks oneself: Why is the hon. member doing this? Is it not true that she is abusing her position in this House by obtaining information which could be abused by people who think as she does, information which would otherwise be difficult for them to come by?

Order! The hon. member may not allege that another hon. member is abusing her or his position in this House. The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw the word “abuse”, Sir. The hon. member is using her position in this House to obtain information which otherwise would not be easily accessible. The hon. member must realize one thing, viz. that through her action and her questions, particularly as far as the police are concerned, she is paving the way for the enemies of the police and for the enemies of law and order. The hon. member is acting as a forerunner for them; she is playing into their hands. By so doing, she is making the task of the policeman in South Africa an almost impossible one. One wonders why the hon. member has never said anything positive about the Defence Force, the Police or the Prison Service of South Africa. The one thing she is always harping on and asking questions about is the question of assaults by the police, the poor conditions in which prisoners are kept and matters of that nature. Consequently, one can only conclude that the hon. member is co-operating with and playing into the hands of those diabolical forces that wish to launch an attack on law and order in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to involve myself in the quarrel which the hon. member for Pretoria East has with other hon. members of the Opposition. He did, however, touch upon the question of the conditions and the dangers to which the police are subject, and I wish to deal with that issue in the course of my speech, because I feel that in so far as salaries are concerned, something dynamic must be done to ensure that our policemen are awarded in terms of the risk they take and the service they give to South Africa.

I want to come back to the words of the Commissioner of Police. They have been quoted before, but I think they must be quoted ad nauseam, until they sink in: “The time has come for us to take a long, hard look at the Force’s establishment and equipment.” I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to take a fresh and dynamic look at the situation of the police and to use his power with his colleagues in the Cabinet to have the Police Force divorced from the Public Service Commission so that they will at least be in a position to be remunerated in accordance with the dangers they run and the important service they render to South Africa. I shall say some more about that later on.

Last night the hon. member for Umlazi dealt with the question of the falling ratio of policemen per 1 000 of the population. I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that the ratio of policemen per 1 000 of the population has dropped by 22% since the Nationalists took over in 1948, and yet no one would say that the conditions under which we live today are as tranquil or as peaceful as they were in 1948. The Commissioner of Police is quite correct in saying that the state of affairs cannot continue and that considerable expansion is necessary. How do we expand? The problem is not an insoluble one, but needs a dynamic approach.

During the last seven years 11 301 White policemen were trained and 11 183 White policemen purchased their discharge. Therefore, during the last seven years there has been a net gain of only 118 White policemen. The figures also reveal that for the last seven years an average of 1 600 White policemen have purchased their discharge from the Force. If one takes that average over a ten year period, it means that 16 000 White policemen have purchased their discharge from the Force and that South Africa has lost the whole establishment of the White Police Force as it stands at present. I believe this situation cannot be allowed to continue. If one looks at the lower ranks in particular, I think one can find the reason for the situation there. The only figures I have in regard to the number of policemen who resigned or purchased their discharge, go back as far as 1948, and I find that in the 1948 report, because the modern reports do not show them. It shows that more than two-thirds of the policemen who bought their discharge in 1948, were policemen with less than three years service. I wonder if a similar position does not pertain today where the young constable just cannot live a life as an ordinary human being would like to live. He would like to get married and to support a wife and child but I submit that in many cases it is impossible for him to do so with the salaries that are offered today. The other aspect is that he suffers unfairly in relation to the South African Railway Police. I do not wish to quote all the salaries, but I wish to refer the hon. the Minister to the fact that as late as February 1976 in respect of four of the top echelon ranks, namely from lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel, the S.A. Railway Police were in each case on higher salary scales than the S.A. Police. The other aspect which I believe puts the S.A. Police in a disadvantageous position is the fact the S.A. Railway Police are paid overtime while the S.A. Police receive no payment for overtime. If one considers the supplementary pay received by S.A. Railway Police for overtime, it can make a considerable difference. The figures given to me last year were to the effect that a constable received overtime pay at the rate of R1,32 per hour. The overtime pay in respect of a captain doing overtime work on a Sunday amounted to R6,35 per hour. Need one wonder why 1 817 men purchased themselves out of the S.A. Police last year? I ask the hon. the Minister: What is being done about it?

It is a serious matter and it is time that the position is rectified. We need a stronger police establishment. The country cannot afford to train policemen knowing that we lose them almost at the rate at which we train them.

I want to pay a very sincere and genuine tribute to the narcotics squad. I think that they do a wonderful job. They have an exacting, dangerous and very demanding task. It is a specialized job and they have done magnificent work in keeping the dagga and drug situation under control in South Africa. I believe that many of these specialized dagga squad personnel are dissatisfied. They are not earning a salary which they could earn in the private sector. I believe that some of their top men are staying in the narcotics squad in the S.A. Police out of loyalty to the Police Force and their country. I do not think that it is fair on their wives and children that they should be placed in that position.

The problem of dagga could, I believe, escalate considerably. For many years the S.A. Police has carried out helicopter patrols throughout the Republic and also over the homelands. It is very interesting to see that in their efforts to locate and to destroy dagga, they have found dagga supplies in Lebowa, Gazankulu, the Swazi homeland, KwaZulu and the Transkei. It is also interesting to refer to the figures the hon. the Minister has given me in reply to questions. This indicates that five times more dagga are located and destroyed in the homelands than in the White areas of South Africa. When it comes to the question of the value of the dagga which is destroyed in the homelands, it is estimated by the hon. the Minister’s department that in the last three years to which I referred, dagga worth more than R15 million was destroyed in the homelands. My question to the hon. the Minister is: What is going to happen when the homelands assume independence? We already know the position in regard to the Transkei. The hon. the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that there will be no more helicopter patrols over the Transkei unless the Prime Minister of the Transkei should ask for it. I believe that we are facing a very difficult situation indeed when we realize that there are several homelands on the brink of independence. These are areas where it is known that dagga is grown, cultivated and exported. As far as the export of dagga is concerned, how can the hon. the Minister give this Committee adequate assurance that, with the establishment of the Police Force as it is, it will be able to control adequately the extended boundaries which exist between us and Transkei and the other areas when they assume independence? I believe it is a task which will be impossible for any Police Force to police and control satisfactorily. I wish to refer to a particular instance, one of many instances which I believe have escalated since the independence of Transkei. I wish to refer to a report in The Natal Mercury of 27 May 1977, which appeared under the headline “Dagga netted by dogs”, as follows—

From Transkei, Mr. Chairman—

This is not just one case … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have no fault to find with the speech made by the hon. member for Berea and I want to thank him for the spirit in which he made it. I do not want to go into the details of his speech, because he will get his reply from the hon. the Minister.

I cannot allow the hon. member for Yeoville to get away with the speech he made here this afternoon. It is a long time since I have listened to a more haughty, presumptuous and arrogant speech in this House than the one the hon. member for Yeoville made this afternoon. I want to know from the hon. member why he asks whether the police in South Africa are the symbol of White power, rather than the symbol of the protectors and guardians of good order, lives and property. Why did he ask that question?

You do not understand it.

I want to know from him why he does not talk to his kindred spirits in his own party who think the same way as he does. However, he puts the arrogant, insulting question to the hon. the Minister of Police and he wants to know from him what he is doing to improve the image of the police in South Africa. Can you believe it! He asks the hon. the Minister that question. I ask him what he is doing about it.

He is the Minister.

Last year in this self-same House his lieutenant, the hon. member for Sandton who is sitting behind him, made a certain remark. He said first of all that a great many people did not view the S.A. Police in a favourable light, and he went on to say the following (Hansard, Vol. 63, col. 10054)—

That is what he said there.

Is it not the truth?

You must not speak when White people are speaking!

I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Bryanston, who has just opened his big mouth, that if this is true—there are such people and I referred yesterday in this House to the message which the “Ministers’ Fraternal” of Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu had issued—that there are some people who do not view the police in a favourable light or who do not want to do so. They spread the most malicious stories about the police. I now want to ask: If it is true, what are those hon. members doing to rectify the position, instead of asking the hon. the Minister what he is doing about it? I say it is a disgrace.

It is a disgrace!

I pointed out in this House yesterday evening how distortions and accusations about the police are bandied about in this country under the guise of religion. I pointed out that hon. members opposite repeated those accusations parrot fashion. I want to refer to a speech which the hon. member for Houghton made in this year’s No-confidence Debate. In that speech she said inter alia (Hansard, 25 January 1977, col. 135)—

She went on to say (col. 136)—

That is to say violence on the part of the police. She went on to say (col. 140)—

Yes, that is true.

I want to ask the hon. member for Yeoville what he is doing about it.

There are people who think as that party does in the official Opposition as well. I am referring to the hon. member for Edenvale who is unfortunately not here at present. He, too, referred to these stories of the Ministers’ Fraternal of Langa during the No-confidence Debate. He, too, referred to those gossip stories. He said inter alia the following (Hansard, 26 January 1977, col. 203)—

Then he made specific reference to what happened in Langa and Nyanga later in the year. Towards the end of his speech, he came up with an astonishing statement. It came after he had made the allegation and said that he would be neglecting his duty if he did not refer to it. He then said (col. 203-4)—

The hon. the Minister of Defence reacted quite rightly to that with: “Then surely you are gossiping.” This is the type of image of the Police that these hon. members are helping to convey to the outside world. Then the hon. member for Yeoville comes along and has the audacity to ask the hon. the Minister what he is doing to build up the image of the police in South Africa as it should be done. It is a disgrace.

I want to proceed and make further reference to the circular I spoke of yesterday evening. The hon. members are still busy this afternoon conveying this type of image in the House that is being spread by these people. They are identifying themselves with those people.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I understand that at the moment there is a criminal case pending of which, I think, all of us must have read in the newspapers this morning, and to which this particular document relates. The hon. member persists in quoting it. Does this not clearly infringe upon the sub judice rule? Might it not prejudice that case?

Order! I am not aware of such criminal proceedings. If the hon. the Minister can tell me that that is so, I can give my ruling in that connection.

Mr. Chairman, I do not exactly know what the court case is that is going on.

Order! The hon. member may proceed.

Mr. Chairman, on a further point of order …

Sir, the hon. member is wasting my time.

Mr. Chairman, if it is in fact not clear what the case is, is it then not, with respect, a duty to send for it in order to gain clarity on this? I want to say that there is a court case pending which these Ministers are being charged and about which every member of the House read in this morning’s newspapers.

Mr. Chairman, may I address you on that point?

Order! The hon. member may continue with his speech.

Sir, if the hon. member had read in the newspaper what the case was about, he would not have wasted my time.

You know it very well.

I am not talking about things that are sub judice. The hon. member knows that.

Of course you do.

What are those so-called ministers doing? Last night I read out some sworn statements. This afternoon I want to read out another one of those sworn statements in which one of these persons says—

I ask you: What games were those people playing?

Political games.

Were they not making political capital out of the matter? That, and nothing else, is what is behind the whole thing. It was nothing more than a rounding up of so-called eye-witness reports with the exclusive goal of, firstly, damaging the image of the police in South Africa and, secondly, of undermining the image and the authority of the Government. Finally— because this pamphlet was distributed throughout the world—the objective was to make common cause with South Africa’s enemies abroad. This type of reporting which is bandied about, is condoned and embroidered on unthinkingly by the hon. member for Yeoville and the hon. member for Houghton. On behalf of this side of the House, I object to it and I think the hon. member owes this House an explanation as to what he meant and said. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think the performance of the hon. member for Koedoespoort is quite remarkable. When one suggests in this House that something should be done in order to remove a problem which exists in order to improve an image, that hon. member has the impertinence to launch into this kind of abusive attack. What is even more serious is that he knows, because he has read the newspapers this morning, that a charge has been laid under the Publications Act in which the very pamphlet, as I read the paper, which he refers to is in issue. The hon. the Minister says that he does not know what the case is about and yet he is in charge of prosecutions throughout the country! He is the Minister of Justice. The very pamphlet in question is referred to.

You must not drag me into the matter. When you make a point of order in this House you are supposed to know your facts. You must not come here without knowing the facts.

I do not think the hon. the Minister is entitled to interrupt me in this fashion. I make the simple point that anybody who has read the newspaper this morning knows that it forms a charge under the Publications Act. The hon. the Minister is the Minister of Justice. The situation is that if one reads what is said in relation to that pamphlet and what the hon. member for Koedoespoort is doing, one will see that what the hon. member is in fact doing is that he is quite deliberately ignoring the sub judice rule. I think it is a scandal; it is a disgrace. It is a bigger disgrace, because here one tries to do something positive to remove an image which is undeserved of policemen, yet one has the arrogance on the part of the NP that they do not want anyone else to say a kind word about the police. That is their prerogative. Only they are entitled to do it; nobody else in this House is allowed to say anything else. That is the arrogance which comes with power that has been enjoyed too long. We all know when that kind of situation arises.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order : Is the hon. member not disregarding your ruling now in that, when he accused me of ignoring the sub judice rule, you said that I might proceed?

Order! The hon. member for Yeoville may proceed.

May I continue with what I was saying earlier, Sir? I made it clear to the hon. the Minister that we wanted policemen back on the beat in larger numbers and I tried to point out the necessity for the relationship between policemen and the people they serve to be improved. He should be part of the local scene. He should know the people. He should be stationed there for lengthy periods of time. The people should know him. He should know the area. We would like to see re-established in the urban areas of South Africa the kind of relationship between the public and the police that we knew when we were young.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member a question?

I am not answering questions and I am not interested in what the hon. the Deputy Minister has to say. That kind of relationship is what we want to see re-established. If the police know the people and the people know the police, the task of enforcing the law and protecting the individual becomes very much easier.

I now come to the question of the police station. I said to the hon. the Minister repeatedly that I want the police station that was taken away from my constituency to be put back … [Interjections.] … because a police station in an area is not a place one should fear. It is not a place one should fear because something is going to happen to one as a result of its being there. It is not a question of rays emanating from a police station. It is a question of a police station being a centre to which one can turn in times of trouble. It is a centre to which people can look for help. This is what we want. [Interjections.] I want the police station back in my constituency. My people want it back there, and there are many other people, hon. members sitting in this House, who are in a similar position. [Interjections.] We can see the logic of it. We have not saved people. One does not need that number of people to run a police station. Many police stations can be run by a skeleton staff, by people who cannot go on the beat, or by women who can perform the required services. One person with a radio and a telephone can provide the kind of service that is required, if more cannot be given. Crime can destroy civilization. Crime can destroy a society. Failure to stamp out crime can bring a Government, in fact a whole State, into disrepute. In high-density flat areas of Johannesburg, and in other parts of the country as well—and I speak with some knowledge of Johannesburg. In Yeoville, Berea, Bellvue and their adjoining areas—there is a high degree of crime. There are assaults, robberies, rape, burglaries, bag-snatching, mugging, etc. All of this takes place, not only in the streets, but even in the entrances to buildings and in lifts. That is the kind of situation that has developed. Many elderly people will not open their doors at night. Women will not open their doors. I believe this needs to be stamped out. I believe we are entitled to ask that the safety of our voters be safeguarded. That is what I ask today.

That is why I ask that policemen should go back on the beat in increasing numbers. The Police Force is too small. There is no question about it. It is not a question of not being able to get the people. It is a question of not being able to keep them in adequate numbers, and therefore we have to give the incentive to policemen to remain in the Force. There are not enough police reservists. There is no question about it. There will have to be a major recruiting campaign in this respect as well. We need the old concept of the city guard patrolling the streets in couples at night, in order to make sure that on a part-time basis they can offer protection to the citizens. I believe this needs to be done. Police stations need to be replaced in cases where they have been removed. The local bobby must go back on the beat. The image of the policeman must be the image of the protector and he must be available to the people to serve them. The people must know that the policeman is there to render them the protection that they need.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened to this very interesting debate on the Police Vote. Before replying to hon. members’ speeches, I should like to draw the attention of hon. members to the latest annual report of the Commissioner of the S. A. Police. I am referring to the honourable mention, awards and commendations mentioned on page 1 of the report—

1. (1) The South African Police Star for Distinguished Service was awarded to Lieut.-Gen. B. F. P. Venter, Lieut.-Gen. P. W. Kruger, Col. A. F. P. Verwey, Detective Warrant Officer G. V. Els, Warrant Officer A. R. C. Heubsch and Sergeant W. W. Victor.
2. (2) The South African Police Star for Merit was awarded to 112 White and 84 non-White members. One bar was also awarded.
3. (3) The South African Police Medal for Faithful Service was awarded to 506 White and 371 non-White members.
4. (4) The South African Police Medal for Combating Terrorism was awarded to 1 551 Whites and 190 non-Whites, 387 Whites and 23 non-Whites receiving bars.
5. (5) For outstanding devotion to duty, courage and perseverance in the performance of their duties, 14 White and two non-White members, as well as two Whites Reservists, were specially commended.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to have my congratulations to all these men and their relatives placed on record. It is a great honour which they have received. They too, have done great honour to the Police Force by earning these medals, decorations and honourable mentions. This is greatly appreciated.

I should also like to refer to paragraph 1 of the annual report, which deals with the roll of honour and which reads—

I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to sympathize with the next of kin of these people and to tell them that we in this House would like to pay tribute to those members who have died in the performance of their duties.

I should also like to take this opportunity of thanking all the policemen for their conduct during the riots which began in June last year. When the riots began, we cancelled all leave of the S.A. Police. That applied until December last year. We placed all policemen on 24-hour standby. Before leaving their homes, they had to let us know where they were going so that they could be called up on short notice. Most police offices worked 12 hours a day, instead of the normal Public Service hours.

Although one can expect complaints in such a large organization, not a single written complaint was submitted to me during that specific period regarding salary increases, poor salaries or things of that nature. When we needed them, they contributed their share and did their duty. They made no requests of anyone, but served South Africa, and therefore I consider it my duty once again to convey the thanks of the House and of South Africa to the Police Force.

I receive many letters from the public. I do not want to refer to all these letters, but here and there one finds a letter which is outstanding and which might interest the House. This specific letter was written to me by a lady from Durban. The letter reads as follows—

I take pleasure, Sir, in giving the Committee the other side of the picture as well. However, this is not all. I should like to read some very brief extracts from a letter I have received from someone else. It was written to me on behalf of a priest of the Catholic Church. He wrote as follows—

I am not going to mention his name—

She goes on to say—

Do you commend the sentiments in that letter?

I commend the sentiments contained in this letter. I think this woman is quite right. [Interjections.] I do not know as I do not belong to that church. She is speaking from within and not from outside the church. I quote further—

I commend this. The letter goes on—

* Just to show hon. members that these ideas do not come from one side only, I want to say that I have also received letters from people calling themselves “The Soweto Law-abiding Citizens”, Johannesburg. I quote—

†This is the vein in which this letter goes on, a letter which was written by Black people in Soweto. I have a number of these letters. There are a number of Black people who come to speak to me.

Who wrote that? Credo Mutwa?

I am not prepared to tell you because it would be those peoples death sentence.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether, bearing in mind what is contained in that letter, he is in fact satisfied that he is able to adequately protect those people in Soweto who really want law and order in Soweto?

I think the hon. member should be able to answer that question himself. I think the police have proved that they can protect everybody in Soweto, provided the PRP does not hang on their backs. [Interjections.]

*The hon. member for Houghton said that we should repeal our security legislation. However, I want to remind the hon. member of the fact that we are not the only country to have such security legislation. I have here a small book called Conflict Studies, Protests and Violence, the Police Response, a Comparative Analysis of Democratic Methods.

† If hon. members will pay attention, they might be able to learn something. This book states the following under the heading “Changes in the Law to Meet New Challenges”—

The hon. member must listen now—

Look at her face. She does not believe it; it is impossible; it cannot happen in Britian—

That is all. Thus provision is much wider than ours. The book continues—

This is the definition—

That is enough to be termed a riot in Britian and to be considered as being a crime. They proceed to say the following in connection with Britain—

This Act still exists. Further on it says—

We are not the only ones who ban people—

This is an important part—

That is all there is to it. These provisions go much further than any of those contained in our legislation.

*What has actually been happening in Britian? Recently they deported two Americans in terms of the provisions of their laws.

†Mark Rosenball and Philip McGee were sent back to America and a court case followed. Lord Denning had the following to say in the Court of Appeal—

I now want to quote the following from the judgment itself—

that is in Britain, not in South Africa.

In our country that is not supposed to happen.

The hon. members on the other side implied that the riots had been caused by separate development. I say that is a blatant untruth. It was not so. I am now going to quote from a memorandum sent to me by a Black man.

From Mutwa?

I was waiting for that interjection of the hon. member. It happens to be a Black man who does not support her and who does not agree with her.

Is it Mutwa?

Precisely, it is Credo Mutwa. What is wrong with him?

We were waiting for that!

No, the hon. member was not waiting for that. That hon. member is the soul-mate of Winnie Mandela. Because Credo Mutwa is not the soul-mate of Winnie Mandela, the hon. member was waiting for this. What did Credo Mutwa say?—

That is what the Black people say in Soweto.

Mutwa is not popular in Soweto.

I am coming to that. I have another letter from my friend, Mr. Credo Mutwa. I want to know whether the hon. member appeals for him as she appeals for all the other people who have suffered.

*This man’s house was burned down after he had written that memo to me. The Black Power people burned down his house and drove him out. He wrote to me as follows—

That is not all. This man was chased out and we had to protect him. He then said the following to me, and I want to know whether the hon. member pities him—

Now hon. members say that it was aimed against apartheid.

Helen is laughing at it.

Yes, she would laugh. I can understand her laughing. We must note the role played by certain people—including the hon. member for Pinelands—who are actively and deliberately promoting Black consciousness. This is Black consciousness which develops into a polarization between Black and White and which develops into Black Power.

In what way am I playing a role? Can you tell me?

I will do that. I want to know from that hon. member whether he has ever been at a Black consciousness movement meeting?

No.

Has he never been there?

Never in my life.

At no stage?

Never in my life.

I am putting these questions to the hon. member because I want to come back to him at a later stage.

*Sir, I want to ask him: Is he a member of the Christian Institute?

Yes.

But then he will know what I am talking about. He is also a member of the S.A. Council of Churches, after all.

Yes.

The University Christian Movement began their activities here in South Africa with the declared aim of making the Black people aware of themselves. Then the Christian Institute came along and they started Wilgespruit. Now I ask the hon. member whether he took any part in the activities at Wilgespruit?

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not? I should like to know, Sir. The S.A. Council of Churches is associated with the Christian Institute and with Sprocas. Is that hon. member a member of Sprocas?

It is no longer in existence.

It is no longer in what?

It is closed; finished.

Oh. He understands that it is closed. Just waving his hand like that. And what about Sprocas?

Yes.

You were a member of Sprocas.

I was involved …

You were? Of course you were involved in Sprocas’ study projects of Christianity in an apartheid society, telling Black people that apartheid is so bad.

It is bad.

It is not bad. That hon. member has never told them about the positive aspects of apartheid. Sir, is he a member of the Black People’s Convention? Is he a sympathizer with the BPC?

Am I what?

A sympathizer with the BPC?

This is not a court of law. The member for Pinelands is not an accused.

The hon. member for Houghton is getting upset. Why is she getting upset?

May I ask you a question?

No, you cannot, You first answer mine; then I will answer yours. Is the hon. member a sympathizer of Saso?

No.

Not a sympathizer?

Not with their declared aims.

Not with their declared aims? What are their declared aims as far as you are concerned?

Order! I want to request the hon. the Minister not to ask questions, thereby provoking the hon. members, for I shall have to call them to order. I am not going to allow any further interjections.

Mr. Chairman, I want to allege that that party has fully identified itself with the Black consciousness organizations. I want to allege that the PRP, of which the hon. member for Yeoville, who has just walked out, is a member, has fully committed itself to promoting Black consciousness among the Black people and gaining their support against the Whites in South Africa.

It is untrue and you know it.

Order! The hon. member for Sandton must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir, and say he should know it.

We have seen various publications. I have here a publication which has unfortunately been banned, called Torture in South Africa?, and therefore I do not want to quote from it. But I have gone through it and I can tell them that there is a lie printed on page 6, as well as on page 12, on page 14, on page 17 …

Does that mean that the rest is correct?

No, I am not saying that. I am merely pointing out the blatant lies. This book is published by the churches. It is a publication of the churches, as far as I know. In any event, there is a letter in it written by the Christian Institute, by Mr. Theo Kotzé. He is the person who keeps finding a bomb under the pulpit in St. George’s Cathedral. But the bomb never explodes while he is there. The bomb simply lies there. When we asked him why the bombs never exploded, the bomb story suddenly came to an end.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is suggesting that the Christian Institute are in the habit of going around planting bombs and then saying that someone else has done it?

I am not suggesting anything. I am just pointing out a certain peculiarity of the action. It happened twice that the bomb that was alleged to be there did not explode. If someone had wanted to hurt him, surely he would have seen to it that the bomb exploded.

Perhaps you will wait until there is an explosion before you do anything about it.

Sir, we have White people here in South Africa who want to polarize the Black people. This has nothing to do with separate development. It is because there are certain people in South Africa— including the leader of the Christian Institute—who believe that the Black people should take over South Africa completely and that the White man should be in a minority position in this country. Until recently, this was the standpoint of the hon. member for Houghton as well. It was her standpoint until the hon. the leader of the PRP repudiated it on television.

The hon. member for Houghton challenged me yesterday to produce the proof. As hon. members will see, the hon. member’s portrait appears on the cover of this magazine.

Yes, you misquoted that.

I shall read it. I shall quote it directly from the article. Does the hon. member deny that that is her portrait on the cover? If she does not deny it, I challenge her to deny what follows. I shall read it verbatim.

I did not say they misquoted; I said you did.

Oh, shut up!

The question put to her was the following—

They were speaking of the position of the Black man in South Africa. They asked her whether that approval she was giving them wasn’t “a step to one man, one vote”. What was her reply? I shall quote her exact words; then the hon. member can tell me what she meant. She said—

This is one man, one vote—

Yes, eventually.

What does that mean in ordinary English? It means that eventually they envisage “one man, one vote”, which actually means …

And your Prime Minister?

… that the hon. member thought she and her party would form an interim Government until “one man, one vote” took over.

Order! The hon. members for Houghton, Yeoville and Pinelands must cease their interjections.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: The hon. the Minister is misrepresenting what I said, because he has not read the entire paragraph. He has left out three lines.

I will read the entire thing.

Order! That is not a point of order. The hon. members must stop making interjections.

Sir, I do not want to be unfair to her. Here is her full reply—

On the basis of “one man, one vote”. How does one do that? She goes on to say—

In other words, all that the hon. member said was that if she and her party ever came into power, they would form an interim government, and eventually every person in the country would have the vote and there would be one man, one vote. This was repudiated by the hon. the leader of the PRP. I want to ask her whether she also repudiates it now?

Repudiate what?

Do you repudiate the one man, one vote idea?

Eventually everybody will …

Order! I must warn the hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for Orange Grove that if they make any more interjections I shall send them out of the House.

Sir, in that case, will you please ask the hon. the Minister to stop asking questions?

Order! The hon. the Minister may proceed.

The point I am trying to make is that people tried to give out during the discussion of the Police Vote that the riots have basically been caused by the Government policy. I allege that they were not caused by that policy at all. It may be good or bad in the eyes of the Black people, but the riots were caused by the Black Power movement which had developed out of the polarization between White and Black. It originated in the Black consciousness movement. Credo Mutwa is right—that is the point I am making. The Black consciousness organization is being promoted by the Christian Institute and all its affiliations, including the hon. member for Pinelands. This is the most dangerous game in which hon. members of this House can indulge, because it affects the future of our children and our grand-children. Even if the policy of separate development is to be condemned in their eyes, we are trying by means of that policy to ensure peace between the races.

It is unfair to insinuate in this highest Assembly that the riots were caused by the Government’s policy. I want to refer again to the attack made on the police as a result of the suicides taking place in the jails. They are using the churches against the South African community. This is a sin which they are committing. They are sinning against posterity in South Africa because this thing could cause blood to flow in South Africa as never before. Those hon. members must stop it. They are the only ones who can stop it.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister is being very provocative.

Order! I am now also giving the hon. member for Pinelands a final warning.

In an attempt to wear down the resistance of the South African community they are beginning to pick on the South African Police. They want to paralyse the South African Police, and they are succeeding, of course. Let us take the Maluli case. Hon. members have heard what an independent person said about Lieutenant Van Zyl. We sacrificed four of our best officers in that I made them appear in court. I said that the information should be sent to the Attorney-General and that the men should appear in court. Those honourable policemen had to stand there. Look at the hon. member for Pinelands smiling at the mention of an honourable policeman.

That is all I can do.

Those honourable policemen stood there, and what did the court find? The court found them not guilty. What does that mean? It means that a South African court of law told those men: “We are giving you the benefit of the doubt.” I concede that it was the benefit of the doubt.

†I never put it higher than that. I have never said that something did not go wrong there. I do not know what went wrong. However, I do say that the courts of South Africa gave them the benefit of the doubt. So why should they again be accused in Parliament of having done something wrong? Why is the PRP not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt like the judges of South Africa were prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt? Why do hon. members not turn around …

Mr. Chairman, am I allowed to interject?

No.

Why do hon. members not come to this House with a balanced view? Why do they not stand up and say to me: “A court of law has given your man the benefit of the doubt. We accept that.” What does the benefit of the doubt mean? It means that they may be completely innocent. Why do hon. members not say that they accept that they may be totally innocent and then ask me how much further the matter has been investigated? I have investigated the matter and there is nothing wrong. I cannot find anything more wrong. I cannot get anymore evidence. But, of course, those hon. members are sceptical.

*All they ever want is damning evidence against these men. Then they are satisfied. I do not understand it.

With reference to the cases of suicide in prisons, they would not get off our backs for months, because they were trying to discredit the South African Police. I faced the international Press myself, and gave the facts in connection with each case—I still have them here. I explained what happened, but I got nothing from those hon. members for doing so. I got absolutely nothing from them, except that they have again asked me to appoint a commission of inquiry. I must again try to pillory these people and I must try to find out what went wrong. The more I tell them that these people jumped over the railings—I cannot expect the police to jump after them— the more they tell me Why do they jump? But why did 35 people in France jump in a similar way during the past year? Why did 35 suicides occur in the French courts? Was it also because the S.A. Police bullied them? Take Belfast, for example. Someone sent me a newspaper report from England of a person who jumped from a window in Belfast. Why should he have jumped? If people jump from windows in South Africa, they attack the S.A. Police.

They are probably afraid of Idi Amin.

No. I shall tell you why they do this. It is because the Police have to be weakened so that Black Power can be strengthened. That is what it is all about.

I should now like to reply to the speeches made by hon. members. In the first place I turn to the hon. member for Umlazi. The hon. member discussed the need to increase the size of the establishment. He indicated that there was a shortfall of 1 798 in the establishment of the Police Force. This is according to the latest annual report.

Mr. Chairman, I see the hon. member for Pinelands, the hon. member for Sandton and the hon. member for Rondebosch are leaving the House. I just want to mention in passing that their doing so does not bother me at all. To tell the truth, the fewer hon. members of the PRP present here, the more I like it. It is a pity that the hon. member for Houghton remained sitting here. Would she not like to join them and walk out as well? [Interjections.]

She is a talker and a sitter!

I want to tell the hon. member for Umlazi that at the moment we are in the fortunate position that our establishment is complete. Our establishment has come up to full strength, apparently because there is at present a levelling off in our economic position. The hon. member went on to ask for the appointment of more policewomen. I agree with the hon. member. The policewomen are doing exceptionally good work. However, they are screened as strictly as policemen. What we are concerned about is the ability of a woman and whether she is qualified to serve in the Police Force. She may want to join the Police Force, but ought to know that she will receive the same remuneration as a policeman and that she must also do the same work as he does. It is not all women who are suited to that task. Nevertheless, we are employing as many women as possible.

The hon. member for Umlazi went on to say that he felt that we should mix the English and the Afrikaans squads. I agree with him on that score. In my opinion it would be a good thing. It would be a good thing to give the young Afrikaner an opportunity to improve his English. At the same it will also afford the English-speaking member an excellent opportunity to talk to his Afrikaans-speaking colleagues in the police. I shall recommend this personally to the Commissioner of Police.

The hon. member also referred to the reservists. According to him English-speaking reservists feel that promotion is being withheld from them. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the promotion of a member of the Police Force is in no way affected by the fact that he is English-speaking. This does not happen, not under any circumstances. All that counts is competence, merit and the requirements of the Police Force.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to point out to the hon. the Minister that it was the police reservists themselves who complained.

Mr. Chairman, I want to give the hon. member the assurance in any case that police reservists—and there are almost more English-speaking among them than Afrikaans-speaking—are not prejudiced in any way either. They are also promoted according to merit.

The hon. member for Waterkloof said how pleased he was about the new equipment. For the information of hon. members I want to mention that we have received new equipment. It is modern equipment and has already been issued to the police. However, we should not like to try it out. I hope that the opportunity to try it out never occurs. At any rate, the equipment will be used if it becomes necessary.

I have already replied to the hon. member for Houghton on the question in connection with the suicides in detention. She also spoke about bird-shot. I went into the matter. I regret that someone was indeed blinded. I deeply regret this. The last thing I would wish upon anyone is that he should be hit by accident. However, it is essential that, in a riot situation, we should choose our weapons with regard to the security of South Africa. These matters should be weighed up against the percentage of people who took park in disturbances last year, and in addition we should take into consideration that it was only five people, and not 19, as the hon. member alleged. However, she has got hold of something again. The hon. member will simply have to tell me about it, so that I may also be aware of what is happening.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister if he has received this information from the secretary of the Medical Association of South Africa and, if not, if he will get that information from the secretary, Dr. Viljoen?

I received the information from the Commissioner of Police, and I am not prepared to go behind his back if he has given me a figure. If he wishes to get that information from the secretary, he will do so. I am not prepared to think that the Commissioner of Police lied to me. The police know only the facts. If one processes these facts into a percentage, the percentage is very small. A person who participates in a disturbance in a riot area, should at least know that he is running a calculated risk. He could be shot dead, struck over the head with a club or sustain some other injury. That is the risk which such a person runs if he wants to march.

The hon. member for Potgietersrust told us about the Dennilson incident. It is almost a pity that one of the Opposition members did not do so. The hon. member explained precisely what happened there. Once again the police were innocent, in spite of the insinuations that the police fired too soon and kept on firing for too long.

The hon. member for Meyerton thanked me for having opened a police station in his constituency. I want to give the hon. member the assurance in public that it was a great pleasure. It was a very pleasant experience to have him as host. He is a most genial host, and I want to thank him sincerely.

The hon. member for Simonstown referred to the bilingualism of reservists. There are bilingual reservists. It is strange that people who were born in South Africa, are less able to speak Afrikaans than a person who came from abroad. An immigrant usually learns Afrikaans at once. I was once in Sweden, and there I met a doctor who was about to come out to South Africa. The day I met him, he greeted me in Afrikaans. At that stage he had already received recordings, and was learning Afrikaans. There sits the hon. member for Houghton. Even now she is still unable to make a speech in Afrikaans. I want to tell the hon. member for Simonstown that I do not want to be dogmatic about this matter.

†I do not want to be dogmatic about bilingualism. I would prefer all reservists to be bilingual. I think if a man serves the public it is his duty to be able to speak both languages.

*However, there are immigrants who are very keen to assist the police and who want to join the reservists. But it may perhaps be that they are not yet able to speak Afrikaans well enough. In such a case I am prepared to allow them to join the reservists. We shall see to it that there is someone next to them in the patrol van, or wherever they are serving, who is able to speak Afrikaans. I do not want to be dogmatic about it, but I am in full agreement with the hon. member that it is strange that in 1977 there are South Africans, in particular, who are unable to speak both languages.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister said that in so far as immigrants were concerned, he was agreeable to this. May I ask him if he is suggesting that South Africans who are not immigrants and are only unilingual, whether English or Afrikaans, are therefore not welcome in the Police Force?

I never said that. When that hon. gentleman starts waving his finger around, he is either going to lecture one or threaten one. I said that our policy in this regard was not dogmatic.

†That is my answer. Did the hon. member not hear me? We are not dogmatic about it, it is not one of the prerequisites. However, I agree with the hon. member for Simonstown and I fail to understand how, in 1977, people born in this country cannot speak both languages. I simply to fail to understand it. I think it is right that people who were born here and grew up in South Africa should be able to speak both languages.

*The hon. member for Simonstown went on to say that he felt that the police ought not to patrol sports events. It so happens that sports events are occasions on which many people congregate together in one place. It is the duty of the police to be wherever trouble may develop. I also find it a pity that it is necessary for so many policemen to run around on the field or do things like that. I do not like it either. I should like to reduce the number of policemen there. I shall take his suggestion further and speak to the sports administrators to see whether they do not wish to appoint a number of people themselves to be on duty at the sports fields.

They are already doing voluntary duty.

I have never heard policemen complaining about having to be on duty at a rugby match.

The hon. member also said that I should station the Black and the Coloured riot police in their own areas. That was a good suggestion, but it is already being done, as it is our policy. He also referred to the police reservists. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to convey my sincere thanks to the police reservists who have helped us to such a geat extent during the past few years, for the service they have rendered. They did so without remuneration and with great sacrifice. They are people who give up a great deal of their time, which they could have used in some other way, to the police. I think that South Africa will always be grateful to them for the wonderful spirit which they are showing.

The hon. member, as well as other hon. members, requested us to remove control over police salaries from the Public Service Commission. I do not know how I can do that. It is just not possible. The Public Service Commission has control over all service organizations of the State. In other words, over the Police, the Defence Force, etc., which are all service organizations. However, what we can do—and we are doing this—is to see in what way we can help the policeman. My colleague, the hon. the Minister of Defence, and I are trying to give our people as much as possible over and above their salaries. I want to mention an example. Last weekend I was in Pietermaritzburg. One of the policeman, a young fellow, who accompanied me there, spoke about the salaries of young people. From questions which I put to him, it appeared that he was married, had been in the service for five years, have no children, lived in a lovely three-bedroomed flat in a fine block of police flats in Durban, for which he paid R11 per month. I am now pointing out an actual case to hon. members. In any language, it means a great deal to the policeman to know that if he joins the Force he immediately, after six months, i.e. as soon as he is permanently appointed as a constable after having passed out, jumps two salary notches and earns a salary equal to what he would have earned if he had been working in the Public Service for two or three years. Other public servants must work out their full period to reach that salary notch, but the policeman is immediately appointed to that highest salary notch. At the very beginning of his career, he already receives an additional allowance of R330 per annum. Of course he automatically receives, at once, an allowance of R30 per month, over and above his monthly salary. He also enjoys many other benefits. For example he belongs to one of the best medical schemes in the Public Service. I must say this in all honesty. Hon. members are now telling me that we should give these men a chance to get married, but all Public Servants find themselves in the same boat, and are on the same salary scale. They are exactly the same as other Public Servants, but they do far more work.

I know that they have to work longer hours, and so on. That is why we always try to get a little extra for our policemen. The financial position today is of such a nature, however, that we cannot grant any increases. But our policemen know their work, they are loyal and we thank these men for being prepared, on our conditions of service, to serve South Africa.

The hon. member for Brakpan made a very interesting speech on the torturing of detainees.

The hon. member for Overvaal discussed the question of fire-arms and paid tribute to the police officers for the fact that they tell the police when they may shoot. As far as the question of shooting is concerned, there are specific regulations for the S.A. Police that have to be complied with, and I do not want to allege that our people do not sometimes overstep the mark and do something which they should rather not have done. In any Force, one always finds those people who do something wrong, but in general our policemen are not trigger-happy.

†The hon. member for Griqualand East wanted to know why we interrogated people upstairs instead of downstairs. The trouble we had in this regard, was that we had so many interrogations at one stage that all the downstairs offices were filled and we had to go upstairs. Normally we interrogate downstairs, but we have a lot of measures to try to stop people committing suicide. The hon. member also referred to the stock thefts and said that patrols were not carried out day and night. We have horse patrols in those areas and as far as I know they are working day and night.

They cannot do it continuously.

The hon. member knows that part of the world better than I do, and he ought to know that it is not easy to patrol there, for the one moment one’s horse is following the cattle and the next the cattle are on the other side. In my opinion the farmers themselves should try to do a little more in this regard. I do not know what efforts they are making, but one should after all try to protect one’s own property to the best of one’s ability. If possible they should appoint more herdsmen. But I want to assure the hon. member that we shall investigate this specific case which he brought to my attention, and see whether we cannot render better assistance. At present we cannot enter Lesotho for relations are not quite what they ought to be. However, we are negotiating with them to restore relations. In any case I shall give the hon. member the undertaking that I shall take this matter further.

What about the purchasing of the farms?

That does not fall under me.

Yes, but you can help!

The hon. member overestimates my influence. But in any case, thanks for the compliment!

The hon. member for Koedoespoort uncovered, in a very interesting way, the lies which occurred in the book from which he quoted. This proved once again, beyond all reasonable doubt, that these people did not correlate their stories sufficiently well.

The hon. member for Pretoria West raised certain aspects in regard to the reservists, and I should like to quote my written reply to the hon. member. While on duty, a reservist has the same competency and powers as a permanent serving member of the Force and he is also responsible to the same extent for his actions. While off duty, he is an ordinary citizen in the same way as any other private person. An active reservist is expected to do at least four hours service per month. This service can be done at any time during the course of the month, and need not be consecutive.

As far as medical benefits are concerned, the reservist enjoys the same privileges as the serving member in regard to any injury or disability which he may sustain while he is on duty, and he is covered to the same extent by the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Provision is made for this under regulation 9(6) of the Regulations of the Reserve Police Force. Uniforms are issued to active reservists. Each of them receive one complete summer uniform and one complete winter uniform, and in general this is deemed to be sufficient. The problem is that exceptions cannot be made by issuing more uniforms to some reservists, who voluntarily work for many more hours per month, than to others. The issuing of uniforms free of charge is a matter which has to be approved by the Treasury, and it is not advisable to go to the Treasury with individual cases. In view of the economy measures it is not desirable at present to incur any further expenditure in this regard. Every reservist has to serve out a trial period of six months and is properly trained before he is appointed as reservist. Reservists are armed while on duty when it is considered necessary owing to the nature of their duty. In certain circumstances the reservists are authorized to use their private ,32, ,38 or 9 mm revolvers or pistols while they are on duty. Fire-arms are not issued to reservists as personal equipment because this is not considered necessary. The reason is obvious. While they are off duty, they are ordinary citizens and have no police powers. When they are on duty, they are vested with such powers and are provided with weapons if the circumstances so require. Hon. members have frequently discussed this matter with me, and have then drawn comparisons between the reservists and the members of the commando. They say that a member of the commando may be issued with his rifle and may then take it home. The difference is that the member of the commando is required to report for duty at certain fixed times. As the hon. member heard, the police reservist has to be on duty for only four hours per month. This means that one of our fire-arms is at someone’s home. If riots then break out, and we have to collect all our weapons, we cannot get hold of those fire-arms. Fire-arms are therefore kept at the police station, and when the reservists report for duty, they are issued with fire-arms.

The hon. member for Yeoville raised the question of bilingualism. We have already discussed it. I want to thank him for what he said about the image of the S.A. Police. I am very pleased that he said it. In this way he not only extolled the image of the S.A. Police, but he also, to a certain extent, made up for the history of his own party as far as the police are concerned.

†I am sorry to say this but it is a fact and there is no doubt about it. I want to tell him something in all friendliness, viz. that the image of the PRP to the police is something shocking. In actual fact the hon. member should do some PRO work there too for that matter. The S.A. Police think that they are the target of the PRP, and in actual fact they are, with the exception of the hon. member for Yeoville. The hon. member said he wanted to see more policemen in the street. The hon. member knows that this is impossible, but we are doing our best in the circumstances. We are not getting the quota of policemen from the various cultural groups that we should get. We are not getting it from the area of Yeoville. We are not recruiting enough policemen from the area of the hon. member. If the hon. member will tell me how many policemen are in his area then I will be able to say whether I can police his area.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he would be satisfied if I told him that we did a check in Yeoville to establish the number of policemen and the children of people who live there who are policemen? He would find that the area of Yeoville would be inundated with something like 300 policemen who are connected with Yeoville.

Order! That is a very long question.

I do not know whether the hon. member is suggesting that because his area is giving me enough policemen, I must give him a police station. I cannot bargain with him on that particular point, but I want to express my appreciation to the hon. member for being worried about the image of the police. I am also worried about it. We are doing our best and we are looking at this whole matter. I really want to appeal to the hon. members there to show more appreciation, as the hon. member for Yeoville has done, for what the police are trying to do.

*The hon. member for Pretoria East discussed assaults on the police, and he made a very good speech. The hon. member for Berea also spoke about the insufficient number of policemen. It is true, but I think that in the course of the discussions which I have had with hon. members, it was clear …

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister if he can assure the Committee that the pay conditions of the S.A. Police compare favourably with that of the Railway Police?

No. I will tell the hon. member quite frankly that that is something which always worries me. My Commissioner knows that this worries me a lot, but I must be realistic. The Railway Police do not have the promotion possibilities that the S.A. Police have. To draw people into the Railway Police you have to say to them: “Look, I cannot give you promotion in this police force, because we do not have such a big police force, but I will give you a better salary. ”

But their top echelon men earn more than those in the S.A. Police.

But how many are there? How do you get into the top echelons?

Do they have as many applications for discharge?

I do not know what their discharge percentage is. If you want to compare the two you must work it on a percentage basis. You cannot do anything else because numerically there is absolutely no comparison. This is one of the difficulties. The first difficulty, as I have said, is that you cannot compare them because of the fact that the promotion possibilities in the Railway Police are less than for the members of the S.A. Police. Secondly, you must not forget that the S.A. Railways does not fall under the Civil Service Commission.

That is what we are asking for the S.A. Police.

I know, but the S.A. Railways is out for good reasons. The S.A. Railways is virtually a business and its staff is paid accordingly, i.e. like the private sector. It is only a semi-governmental organization, while the S.A. Police fall full squarely under the services. We cannot do anything about it. Who will be left over under the Civil Service Commission if everyone wants to take his department out? We must be fair to these people. There must be some sort of correlation, otherwise the members of the Opposition will go for us again because of the higher expenditure.

I want to thank the hon. member for his tribute to the narcotic squad. I want to tell him that the thing that worries me and that has been worrying my department for a long time is the narcotic position in the night clubs in the various harbour cities. I know the hon. member does a lot of valuable work in this regard together with some very magnificent policemen that we have who deal with this matter. I want to tell the hon. member that I have now written letters to the various Administrators because we want a better licensing system. We want a licensing system for these clubs that these young girls go to that will make it possible for the municipalities to immediately withdraw a licence and close a place down if the police object for whatever reason. We are doing our best to try to stop prostitution in places like that. We want to stop these young girls from running away from home and virtually living in these clubs. I can only say that the police are giving a lot of attention to this matter.

The hon. member asked what would happen when the homelands become independent. Well, the question really answers itself. When the people are independent they are independent. We will have to see whether any drugs or dagga come through from the homelands, which I doubt.

But they are coming through now.

They have always been coming through. It has always been like that. People did grow dagga on their land and we have had all the help in the world from their police. We do get help from them. I think their governments are just as worried as we are about this abuse. In any case, I will carefully watch the situation and we will try to take the necessary steps as time comes. We can again debate the matter.

*Mr. Chairman, I think that I have now replied to everyone. There is still the hon. member for Koedoespoort who made a very good speech in which he replied to the hon. member for Yeoville. It seems to me the hon. member for Yeoville did not appreciate it very much.

The hon. member for Yeoville discussed his police station again. I have already replied to him on that point. I think that that, therefore, covers the matter, and I thank hon. members for their contributions.

Vote agreed to.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to what I consider to be a purely technical fault in the English text of the Bill. Clause 1 amends certain definitions in the principal Act. Clause 1(d) provides for the amendment of section 1 of the principal Act—

Then “prisoner” is defined and included in that definition one reads on page 4 “‘prisoner’ means …” Then further down one reads—

And below that there is also the definition of “psychopathic disorder”. I believe “psychopath” should not be included in the definition of “prisoner”. If one looks at paragraph (d), one sees that it says—

“Psychopath” cannot be a definition of a “prisoner”. What should actually be inserted there is a further paragraph (e) which should read as follows—

after which “psychopath” and “psychopathic disorder” should be defined. If the hon. the Minister looks at that carefully, I think he will see that it would then be in accordance with the Afrikaans text. This should be corrected.

So, you are suggesting that that should be in the plural?

No, I am trying to point out that the definitions of “psychopath” and “psychopathic disorder” should not be included under the definition of “prisoner”.

That is right.

Therefore a paragraph (e) should be added which should read as follows—

That would correct it. It would then follow the Afrikaans text.

Yes. Mr. Chairman, like the young girl, this has caught me a little bit suddenly. Will the hon. member allow me to have a look at this in the Other Place?

Sir, I believe that that can be fixed up in the Other Place. It is just a technicality.

I want to refer specifically to the definition of “hospital prison for psychopaths”. The hon. the Minister will see that throughout the Bill there will be amendments moved by myself on behalf of the hon. member for Rosettenville to change “psychopaths” to “the mentally ill”. I wish to justify the reasons for this in greater detail than was done in broad outline by the hon. member for Rosettenville in the Second Reading.

There are three reasons why we wish to change the terminology. The first reason is that we believe that there is undoubtedly a stigma attached to the word “psychopath” and that that descriptive word is of doubtful value here. I shall try to prove that to the hon. the Minister in a moment. Our second reason for asking for this amendment is that, if the description is not broadened, it will be too narrow for what we envisage should be a function of the Prisons Department in regard to prisoners. I am referring to prisoners only. Thirdly, if the description is not extended, I do not believe we shall find a solution to what, I understand, is the problem experienced by the prison authorities and the Department of Health in relation to mental institutions when dealing with mentally ill prisoners. Those are the three basic reasons why we believe that the word should be changed. If the hon. the Minister is with us, we can move the amendments to the other clauses later on. However, if he feels he cannot justify the change itself at the moment, we shall obviously be obliged to allow the other amendments to drop, because they are in fact all consequential. I believe that the word “psychopath” has been heavily criticized throughout the world and I want to refer to some of the eminent authorities who have criticized it. The first one to which I want to refer is an article which was written by Dr. Cooper in the booklet which has been put out by Nicro on Crime Punishment and Correction, in which he says the following in dealing with the question of psychopaths—

And this is what I want the hon. the Minister to listen to—

In other words, here from a well-known psychiatrist we have an indication that the word “psychopath” is regarded in certain quarters as being a rather despicable terminology.

Let us also look at what a visiting professor from the USA had to say on this matter. He is Prof. Ralph Slovenko, and I am referring to the June 1976 issue of Crime Punishment and Correction, where this eminent psychiatrist, dealing with the question of the word “psychopath”, said as follows—

That is for psychopaths—

There is also the case which was heard in South Africa in which Dr. Pascoe, who is a well-known psychiatrist as well, also referred to the difficulty he had in relation to the use of the word “psychopath”. He said as follows—

Here we are tending towards using the word “psychopath” in the definition of the prison hospital which is going to exclude certain people who may well be psychopaths. That is why we want to broaden the scope of the whole operation, because we realize at what this whole operation is directed. It is directed towards the difficulties which have been clearly explained by the Rumpff Commission and also by the commission which was generally known as the Van Wyk Commission, where one found that psychopaths were a disturbing situation in regard to, not only mental institutions, but also in relation to prisons themselves. We therefore believe that there is a wide variety of conditions which actually arise in regard to psychopathic disorders. The general term in every-day language as far as people are concerned, is that if one is called a psychopath, this will generally connote violence. But in point of fact there are certain types of psychopathy which do not have anything to do with violence at all. I do not want to relate them in detail to the hon. the Minister, but there are at least ten different types of psychopathic disorder which are in fact psychopathic, but not violent. So, unfortunately, the general use of that term has been accepted by people in the context of violence. We believe it is unfortunate to perpetuate something like this in our system of penal reform which we believe is the main attitude of penal services today.

In regard to the question of rehabilitation, there is no doubt that in medical terms there is a possibility that certain psychopaths can be treated and cured. We believe it is wrong that it should be known that during their life, i.e. after they have been cured, they have been treated in a prison hospital for psychopaths. I do not believe it is something which would help them in their rehabilitation.

I now want to refer to the definitions which are contained in the Mental Health Act, 1973. The Act defines mental illness as “any disorder or disability of the mind” and includes “any mental disease”, “any arrested or incomplete development of the mind” and “any psychopathic disorder”. According to the definition “mentally ill” has a corresponding meaning. This then means that if one adopts the attitude that we have, and replaces the word “psychopath” with “mentally ill”, one will be able to keep psychopathic people in that particular hospital.

The third reason is that we believe that in the course of time the prisons department will find it necessary and clinically better for prisoners to be treated under the circumstances of a prison hospital for mentally ill people, a hospital covering a wide field of mentally ill people. I believe that while these hospitals are being run by authorities who are experts in their particular field, it will be advantageous. [Time expired.]

Order! Has the hon. member moved that amendment?

No, Sir, I have not moved it yet.

Mr. Chairman, I move the three amendments printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

1. (1) On page 2, in line 16, to omit “definition” and to substitute “definitions”;
2. (2) on page 2, after line 16, to insert:

“photograph” includes any cinematograph film, any picture intended for exhibition through the medium of a mechanical device, and any film cassette, magnetic tape cassette or video plate;

“ ‘take’, in relation to any cinematograph film, picture, film cassette, magnetic tape cassette or video-plate referred to in the definition of ‘photograph’, means produce in any manner;”;

I do not wish to elaborate further on the matter. These aspects have already been discussed in other debates. I just want to point out that this relates to section 6 of the Principal Act. The word “photograph” appears in section 44(1 )(e). The idea here is to see to it that technical development in other fields will not frustrate the intentions of the legislator in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, I want to proceed now with the argument I was developing a moment or two ago. The third reason is that I believe that in the course of time the prison authorities should take over the handling of prisoners who are mentally ill. After all, they have the authority and the knowledge of how to treat prisoners. Secondly, they have the knowledge of certain safeguards by which they can make sure that mentally ill prisoners they are treating are kept in proper custody.

I would like to quote here just a few words said by the same Dr. Cooper I quoted earlier—

Prof. Slovenko, who wrote a book under the title Psychiatry and Law, had the following to say in regard to the situation in America—

That is the prison system—

I am talking about prisoners—

In other words, there is a dispute between the two—

I believe that is happening in South Africa and can happen again under these circumstances. I believe that what we should try to do is to aim for a solution to this particular problem. If one approaches this situation on the acceptance that in the far future to which the hon. the Minister referred in his reply to the Second Reading, we will possibly have to deal with this type of situation, we can now, in fact, start heading towards it. However, it is not absolutely necessary to accept that on each occasion that a mentally ill prisoner is certified by a psychiatrist in a prison, that he should go to that hospital which is being established by the authorities at the moment. That can be kept, at the moment, exclusively for people who have psychopathic tendencies. I believe there is a difficulty in obtaining staff and we realize that there is a shortage of clinical psychologists. In his Second Reading speech the hon. the Minister said that the clinical psychologists were on a “tydelike basis”.

They are permanent. It is the psychiatrists who are temporary.

The hon. the Minister said : “Ons beskik net oor kliniese sielkundiges en psigiaters wat op ’n tydelike grondslag …” I see that it can be read as if the hon. the Minister was referring only to the psychiatrists. I realize there is a difficulty in getting psychiatrists as well. I believe that planning ahead is the type of thing we should aim at in regard to the prison services.

Finally, I believe there is specialized treatment necessary for these prisoners. Whether the prisoner is a psychopath, or a suspected psychopath or a mentally ill person, he should be treated in the prison arena. If we change the designation of the prison hospital for psychopaths to the prison hospital for the mentally ill, we will be able in the future, and perhaps even now, to deal with people who are mentally ill, but who are not necessary psychopaths only.

I move the amendment printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Rosettenville, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I shall accept all three amendments by the hon. member for Pretoria West. The amendments seem to me to be quite in order. Unfortunately I cannot accept the amendment by the hon. member for East London City. I think the hon. member will agree with me that if I were to accept it, I should in fact be broadening the position in the prisons by making the prisons available to people who were not psychopaths. We are not in a position to do this, neither do we want to have the reputation that we will admit any person suffering from a mental disability, to the prisons or even to the hospital prisons. We do not want to create such a situation. We should rather have people who are mentally disturbed, but who are not psychopaths, treated in some other place than the prison.

The hon. member also had a problem with the expression “psychopath”. Unfortunately this is an expression used in the Mental Health Act and if the definition of the word should be changed in any way, it would first have to be amended in the other Act before we could accept any amendment. In the Mental Health Act a psychopath is defined and the Act also lays down specific provisions with regard to the certification of a person as a psychopath. We cannot amend these provisions at this stage, for this is in another Act.

That is not what I am asking.

The hon. member said there was a stigma attached to the word “psychopath”. I say that I am sorry about this, but that I cannot use another word now.

What about the word “mentally ill”?

No, I cannot use that, for then I am extending the provision too much. After all, I have just said that I should not like to extend the provision with regard to prisons in such a manner that it also includes mentally ill people. The prisons are only able and willing to handle psychopaths at this stage.

One must be bold.

I cannot be bold. I must have the staff to be bold. It is no use accepting legislation which will only be applied in 50 years’ time. There is also the problem of Black psychopaths which still has to be sorted out. There is a programme, and this will definitely take another five to ten years before we can consider any other people who are mentally ill. The hon. member said that we could allow anyone who was mentally ill in the prisons at the moment. This is not so. Under sections 27, 30 and 32(1) of the Mental Health Act we can do this. Under those sections we can admit certain people whom the State President assign to us, to the prison or to a hospital prison. We do not want to extend the scope of the provisions to such an extent that we can admit any person to those institutions. Therefore I cannot, unfortunately, accept the hon. member’s amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to read to the hon. the Minister what has been said by Dr. Cooper, to make him realize what situation is developing. I quote—

That is what I want to emphasize. If we did have a hospital for mentally ill people in the prison services, that type of person could be catered for.

Mr. Chairman, I do not have the qualified staff to determine who is really mentally ill in that sense of the word and who are psychopaths. The psychopaths are the only people we have place for and for whom we have staff to deal with them. That is my reason.

Amendment moved by Mr. H. G. H. Bell negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Amendments moved by Mr. Z. P. le Roux agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, I have listened to the hon. the Minister’s reply to the hon. member for Durban North during Second Reading. Since then I have had the opportunity of looking at his Hansard. I find it unusual for this hon. Minister to make out a case which is not totally unreasonable. Therefore I shall not move the amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper. However, one of the things I think I should point out to the hon. the Minister in relation to this clause, is that the intention of legislation, as stated in Parliament and reflected in parliamentary debate, in fact bears no relevance to the judicial interpretation of that legislation once it has been placed on the Statute Book. The hon. the Minister is well aware of that. Therefore, if we read the precise wording of the Bill and of the measure as it is before us today and then look at the explanation given by the hon. the Minister, it is the feeling of us on these benches that in effect the Bill goes far further than the effect the hon. the Minister, according to his explanations, intends it to have. From the hon. the Minister’s explanation at Second Reading, I understand that it is his intention to prevent a prisoner writing and making money out of his or her offence. I think that is something with which all members in the House agree. I think it is —as the hon. the Minister says—contra bonis mores, against public policy, that a prisoner should be able to make financial gain out of his own offence by writing in one form or another about that particular offence. This clause covers that particular aspect and in this sense it has the support of this side of the House.

In the second place it is the hon. the Minister’s intention—if I understand him correctly—to prevent anyone from seeing a prisoner in a prison, discussing the offence and perhaps the prisoner’s conduct with such prisoner, then writing about it and passing the writing off as being independent. That argument finds favour with us as well. I think it is correct that the hon. the Minister should try and plug that sort of exploitation.

The third argument which the hon. the Minister put forward in this regard, is that while a prisoner is in gaol for a particular offence, it is not in the public interest “… dat ons nie allerhande verhale oor hulle behoort te skryf nie …. I am not sure that I agree with the hon. the Minister on that particular argument, because I do not think that a prisoner is any more sacrosanct in his privacy than any private person or any public figure. Any person should be entitled, within the laws of libel and defamation, to write with the freedom that any other individual should enjoy. Having stated those as the reasons, and finding sympathy with the hon. the Minister’s argument, what is the effect of this clause? The effect of the clause is, in the first place—the hon. the Minister succeeds in this—that a prisoner cannot write about his crime while being a prisoner unless he has permission or unless he uses the court record exclusively. In the second place it prevents any person other than the prisoner, who may not be in collaboration with the prisoner at all, from writing about such prisoner’s crime or about the prisoner himself unless he exclusively uses the court record or unless he has the permission of the Commissioner of Police. This means that only the bare record might be used by a biographer, a writer or a professional author. Interviews with any other person, interviews concerning the prisoner, i.e. with a witness, a friend and a relative, may not be used. The hon. the Minister said the court case was “mos ’n verhaal”, an unfolding story as the case unfolds. That is correct, but very often the court case gives merely the brevity of the offence and does not in fact describe the prisoner, the scene of the crime, etc. In trying to prevent an evil, an evil which we concede must be prevented, the hon. the Minister is in fact preventing the legitimate writings of people who might wish to write books, people such as Benjamin Bennett, which give more than simply the court record. This provision could also have the effect of preventing investigative writing subsequent to an offence being tried and a prisoner sentenced. To that extent the clause goes further than the hon. the Minister’s intention and I want to warn that although it is the hon. the Minister’s intention that a limit should be placed on such writings, the effect of the law will be taken from the Statute and not from what the hon. the Minister has said in the House. Accordingly I would like to move the following amendments—

being a prisoner or a person acting in collaboration with a prisoner,

The second amendment is consequential upon the first. The purpose of this is to stop a prisoner from writing about himself and to stop any other person writing about the prisoner or about his offence in collaboration with such prisoner, but at the same time not using the sledge-hammer to deal with the fly which the hon. the Minister wishes to deal with. I am not in any way bound to this wording, because I drafted the amendment in a hurry and it might not be exactly the correct wording. The wording is not, however, the problem. The problem is to introduce an amendment which deals with the evil and the mischief which the hon. the Minister wishes to deal with, an amendment which, at the same time, does not exclude a broad mass of writings which might well be in the public interest.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to react to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Sandton; I leave that to the hon. the Minister. I should like to refer to the new section 44(1) as amended by clause 6(2) of the Bill. The provision reads—

The trial of the particular case which I think the hon. the Minister has in mind started on 14 November 1974 and therefore I move as an amendment—

Mr. Chairman, just to really confuse the whole issue I am also going to move a little amendment which does not appear on the Order Paper. I think it is wise that we have all these amendments before us so that we can conduct this debate and see what is really transpiring. I am referring to clause 6(2) on page 10. If one reads the English and Afrikaans versions, one finds that they differ. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister realizes where they do differ? Does he?

Yes.

Then I wish to move the following amendment—

Mr. Chairman, I wish to start with the amendment moved by the hon. member for East London City. He is quite correct. I, too, looked at the English text and noticed that something had been omitted. The effect of the hon. member’s amendment will be that the Afrikaans and English texts will be made exactly the same. Therefore I am prepared to accept the amendment.

As far as the hon. member for Koedoespoort is concerned, we all know to which case we are trying to refer here. I think it would perhaps be better to take the date of the trial. If we are agreed in principle on the fact, I do not think the date is so important. If we take the date of the trial, we know that is the date on which the person concerned started selling his life story. Therefore I am prepared to accept that amendment as well.

As far as the amendment by the hon. member for Sandton is concerned, I can assure him that we are on the same wavelength. I have sympathy with the amendment, but I am concerned about one thing. It may happen that someone outside the prison wants to write a story and that he wants to mention more than he can get from a court case. It does not matter if he is going to write about the place, for this has nothing to do with the case. He will be able to write that as well.

What about the biographical details?

Where is he to get the biographical details the hon. member refers to? He usually goes to the family of the prisoner. We do not want people to harass the prisoner’s family in an attempt to get information from them which they could also have obtained from the prisoner. The prisoner’s family must not be harassed during the period that he is in prison. When the prisoner is released from prison, they can go to him and then they can do with him what they like. We have then done with him. We do not want these people to be harassed while we are engaged in an attempt at rehabilitation.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not correct that the family outside the prison can very easily refuse to give whatever information they do not wish to give? They may even be entitled to refuse to see such a person because that is their own free right.

I think he made an offer which they can hardly refuse. In a roundabout way they are actually making money out of the person’s crime. I frankly think that we should retain this. I can see the hon. member’s difficulty and I have the same difficulty; let me be honest about that. I shall consider this, and if we feel that the amendment should be accepted, we shall do so in the Other Place.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a few questions about this retrospectivity. I think the hon. member for Rosettenville has already clearly explained to the hon. the Minister that we on this side of the House are totally opposed to retrospective penal provisions, whether they create a fine or whether they punish a person by virtue of what is happening here, i.e. forfeiting certain moneys received for certain work and labour. We regard that as a retrospective penal provision. The hon. the Minister, being legally trained, will know that this is contrary to our normal process of law in this country. We do not appreciate retrospective penal provisions. In fact, doing a little research, I found that in the constitution of the United States of America, it is actualy provided for that there shall be no crime or punishment without legal provision. This is regarded highly throughout the Western world as being a tenet of good government. During the Second Reading debate the hon. the Minister referred to the fact that certain people came to see him. We will only be satisfied and prepared to accept this clause if the hon. the Minister can satisfy us that, after he had warned these particular people that they were not to do this, they in fact did it. On reading his speech very carefully, it appears that what happened was that they had actually perpetrated this act and that thereafter the Minister said to them that they had done wrong, that they should not have done this, and that they should not go on with it. I shall quote from his uncorrected Hansard—

And so forth. I wish to know from the hon. the Minister now what the object is of changing these dates. Are we now taking it back to the 14 November 1974 so as to include a date within which the actual action took place, or is it being put back so that we can ensure that these people can be brought under a provision whereby they can be punished? What is the object of, in the first instance, having selected the 31 May 1975? This worries us a lot. We believe that in principle, if we accept this without very good reasons, we are setting a possible standard for having retrospective laws in future. The hon. the Minister must please explain to this House carefully just exactly what his stand is in regard to retrospective laws.

Mr. Chairman, as far as the retrospectivity is concerned, I want to tell the hon. member that the offence here, as the hon. member knows, is not made retrospective. The offence as such is not made retrospective. The only thing that is being made retrospective is the fact that a person who obtained money from something that would now be an offence, if the Bill were passed, could forfeit the money to the State. As far as I am concerned, I cannot tell the hon. member how much money passed to this particular person, nor at what stage it passed to him. My department made a calculation at what stage it could possibly have passed to him, based on rumour that we heard and that is how the arbitrary date of the 31 May 1975 was decided upon. Subsequently, after the Bill was published, I asked the department how this particular date was arrived at. It may well be possible that the payment was made prior to this date. I do not know. As I say, most of this was rumour. Let me tell the hon. member what happened. Unfortunately I cannot remember the date on which it happened, but it was some time this year. I said earlier that I called these people in. I was actually approached by the attorney of this particular person and also by an advocate who asked me for an audience. I said that if it was about that case, I would give them an audience. Therefore, although I said I called them in, in actual fact they approached me first. The initiative came from them. In my office I was asked whether I would consent in terms of the old section 44 to the biography being published. They did not tell me whether money had changed hands, whether it had been promised, or anything like that. However, it was quite obvious to me that there was a financial deal involved. After all, they were not doing this for nothing. They were acting on behalf of a publisher. I said to them: “You are asking me for my consent. As the law stands at present, I do not think my consent is necessary, but if I am wrong in law and my consent is necessary, and as long as you think that my consent is necessary, let me say that for my part it would be totally immoral to give you the consent you require, because I believe that it is in any case immoral as far as our country is concerned.” My words were that it was contra bonis mores for any person to be able to make money out of crime. I said: “The saying is that crime does not pay, but it seems that crime does pay.”

If rumour is right—I do not know whether it is—a tremendous amount of money is involved. The money involved could render the person concerned fairly well off in the circumstances. To my way of thinking this is totally immoral. I asked the attorney on what the biography was going to be based. He then referred to certain notes. I then said to him: “If those notes are used, I am afraid I will have to take certain steps, but I want you to understand clearly that I am in any case against this and that I will introduce legislation to stop this practice.” That is what I told him. I made it quite clear that whether money had been paid or not, and whether the story had already been written or not, I would introduce legislation to stop it, because there has been quite a hue and cry from the public about people making money out of their crimes. I was definitely against it. In those circumstances I have brought this legislation before the House. It is possible that the notes were even used at the trial. I do not know. I am not certain of this. However, I know that notes were made. Officials of the Department of Prisons told me that they gave consent for certain notes to be made. I do not know whether the story is to be based on those notes or not, but I think it is immoral for the person concerned to get any money from it. In any event, rumour has it that the money has already changed hands, and therefore I introduced this legislation. I am prepared to settle for 14 November, because it is certain that at that date no negotiation about the person’s crime would have taken place. That is the date on which the person involved first appeared in court. Therefore nobody would have been able to negotiate with the person before that time. However, I believe that this practice is wrong in principle and therefore as far as I am concerned the date should be as early as possible.

What are your views on retrospectivity?

As I have said, in general I agree with the hon. member, but since this particular case is contra bonis mores, I had to take such a step.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to the hon. the Minister. It seems that there is agreement on all sides that in normal circumstances retrospectivity in relation to any sort of penal sanction is frowned upon. I agree with the hon. the Minister that that is generally the point of view that has been adopted in our law for a period of time.

Nearly all the security laws are retrospective.

The hon. member for Houghton says that all the security laws are retrospective.

Most of them.

I do not recall that, but I shall not argue that point.

I suppose you can now that the negotiations between you are over!

I am sure we would be glad to hear from the hon. member for Simonstown if he has anything worthwhile to say in this debate. The hon. the Minister has said, if I understood him correctly, and I think I do, that at an early stage the representatives of the interested parties had it brought home to them that in the event of undertakings being made whereby considerations would pass— stories or information—in respect of the particular crime which this particular legislation is aimed at, he would introduce legislation to render that nugatory. It is because of the particularly offensive nature of the case in point that we are inclined to support this clause, that we are prepared to accept what we would normally—as the hon. member for East London City has said—not accept, i.e. a retrospective involvement whereby something is going to be made illegal which would otherwise be legal. I think it is right to say that the nature of this particular conviction, and the crime which brought about that conviction, was of such a nature as to make it almost an outrage in the public mind if a large sum of money were permitted to be paid to the guilty person in order that publicity could be given to a particularly outrageous offence. For that reason, and for that reason only, are we prepared to accept in this instance the retrospective nature of this penal provision.

Amendment (1) moved by Mr. D. J. Dalling negatived and amendment (2) moved by Mr. D. J. Dalling dropped (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Amendment moved by Mr. P. H. J. Krijnauw agreed to.

Amendment moved by Mr. H. G. H. Bell agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to (Progressive Reform Party dissenting).

Clause 8:

Mr. Chairman, I move the second amendment printed in the name of the hon. member for Rosettenville on the Order Paper, as follows—

We believe that there should be a clearer specification in regard to the member of the prison services who is going to be in charge of these particular people. The hon. the Minister has had a good opportunity of looking at this amendment. I am not going to argue it in detail. I believe it is right and proper that if we delete the words “in charge of such prison or by any other member of the Prison Service in whose charge he may be”, we must replace them with the words “by any delegated member of the Prison Service”. In other words, there must be a specific delegation in regard to each prisoner and in regard to the work and labour to be performed.

Mr. Chairman, I am not prepared to accept the amendment. I cannot really see the sense of the amendment, for every member there has a measure of authority to assign these tasks. These are special members working in that section. They are people who have been selected. I cannot see how the word “delegate” will be of any assistance in that regard, and therefore I cannot accept it.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

With a view to Bophuthatswana’s becoming independent, it is necessary to make provision for the hearing of appeals from the high court to be established there. In the Bill before this House, provision is being made for appeals to the appellate division of the Supreme Court of South Africa from a high court of a state to which independence has been granted by law. If the principle contained in the Bill is accepted it will eliminate individual legislation in each case. The states concerned will be able to make use of the services of our appellate division if they so desire. The measure will save the state concerned vast expenditure as it will not be necessary for them to create their own appellate divisions immediately.

The uniform development of law in Southern Africa will also be promoted. Furthermore, this ought not to cause additional work for our appellate division as it is handling the work from the territories concerned at the moment.

If this Bill is passed, the need for the continued existence of the Appeals from the Supreme Court of Transkei Act, 1976, as a separate Act falls away. Consequently this Bill makes provision for that Act to be repealed.

Mr. Speaker, should the hon. the Minister be in suspense, I immediately want to assure him that we will support this Bill. This type of legislation is not unique. Last year we passed similar legislation giving the Transkei the privilege and the right of being able to use our Appeal Court to settle its disputes. We now offer the same privilege to other homelands which may become independent. We are offering them the opportunity of using the services, the wisdom, the integrity of a court which is highly respected by jurists, as highly as any other court in the world. Our Appeal Court has a high reputation for incorruptibility and independence from Government interference or persuasion.

Any young country still building up its administrative machine, any country trying to build up a sufficient number of suitably qualified legal practitioners to run their administrative machine, will be well advised to make use of an offer such as this. Some jurists have expressed the thought that it may be advisable to create a special Court of Appeal to deal with appeals from homelands, a special court consisting of judges who are acquainted with the customs and the ways of thinking of the Black people. Such courts did, in fact, operate in the protectorates before they became independent. Be that as it may, we are not forcing our courts on anybody. We are making this offer as an act of friendship towards the homelands for their administration once they become independent. Therefore we in these benches support this measure.

Mr. Speaker, while I cannot say that we support this Bill, I can say that we will not oppose it. [Interjections.] I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Griqualand East. Although not opposing the Bill, I want to say that it is ironical that at a time when a law is being passed in this House to broaden the offer to states which may in due course become independent, it seems to me that there are no such states in sight, except Bophuthatswana over which a cloud hangs in so far as its independence is concerned. However, we believe that the standing and the status of our Appellate Division is such that it can only render a service to any territory requiring its services. It can only provide a form of justice of which South Africa would be proud and, accordingly, we would not oppose the measure.

Mr. Speaker, I just stand up to say that we, too, formally support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the hon. members of the Opposition for supporting the Bill. I also want to thank the PRP for not supporting, although not opposing the Bill and the S.A. Party for supporting it.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, if there is no objection, I move—

Any objection? There being no objection I shall ask the Chairman to take the Chair.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: May I point out that there in fact was objection from these benches.

Order! I did not hear any objection being raised. The hon. member should have done it in such a way so that I could have heard it. I shall now ask the Chairman to take the Chair.

Committee Stage taken without debate.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say straight away that we on these benches are opposed to the provisions of this clause. I stated our reasons therefor fairly fully in the Second Reading debate. Later on in the debate I will elaborate on those reasons. Meanwhile I want to make it quite clear to the hon. the Minister that we are going to vote against this clause. It makes no difference to us on these benches that our colleagues in the Other Place did not vote against the clause.

I was appalled at the hon. the Minister’s attitude last Friday. This attitude was regrettably supported by the hon. the Prime Minister and, not surprisingly, also by the hon. member for Walmer. The hon. the Minister on that day made an issue of the fact that we in these benches should vote against a measure which our colleagues from the same party in the Other Place had not voted against. This is exactly what is going to take place in respect of the provisions of this clause now under discussion.

In the first place I should like to say to the hon. the Minister that, if one were to study the matter carefully, one would find that the thinking of our colleagues in the Other Place with regard to the provisions of this clause and the Bill generally, is very similar to the attitude which we in this House have taken. The only material difference between ourselves in this House and our colleagues in the Other Place concerns the decisions which were taken in the Other Place in regard to the procedure to be followed in respect of voting. Let me say—and this I regard as being even more important than any difference in procedure—that I would not have been in the least concerned if our colleages in the Other Place had also taken a different line in debate on the subject matter as opposed to taking a different line only as far as the procedure on voting was concerned. Surely, the essence of a bicameral parliamentary system is that each House should be able to take views independently of the other. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he regards the Senate as a house of review or as a rubber stamp. Does he regard the Senate as an independent body or as a carbon copy of this House, empowered only to pass minor amendments to legislation?

Order! The hon. member must not discuss the functions of the different Houses of Parliament too widely.

Mr. Chairman, with the greatest respect to you, during the Second Reading debate this side of the House was taken to task by the hon. the Minister—and the debate was permitted by Mr. Speaker—in regard to the different line taken in regard to voting procedure by members of the UP in the Senate and in this House. I advance these arguments in an effort to explain and justify our stand.

I know that. I can assure the hon. member that I was present when the matter was discussed. However, my point is that the hon. member must not take the question of the functions of the two Houses of Parliament too far.

Mr. Chairman, with the greatest respect to you, I think the functions of the two Houses are relevant to this argument. If you will permit me to carry on, I assure you …

I do not want to stop the hon. member. I only want to draw his attention to the fact that he must not take that matter too far.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the Senate is to be a house of review, it has to be in a position to act independently. It must not be regarded as untoward or unusual or in any way incorrect if members of the same party act independently or differently in the two Houses. I can see no other way in which the two Houses can act independently. It seems to me that the hon. the Minister and, for that matter, the hon. the Prime Minister would like to see the Senate as some sort of subservient rubber stamp. It seems to me that that is a completely undemocratic, autocratic, dictatorial attitude which I find completely abhorrent and one from which I differ fundamentally. I make no apologies for this side of the House having voted differently on this Bill either at Second Reading or in the Committee Stage from what our colleagues in the Senate have done.

I shall now return to the contents of the clause. We are opposed to the clause because in the first place it enables Escom to sell electricity at approximately 30% more than the cost of producing that electricity and at approximately 14% more than is being charged for electricity at present. These increases are to be introduced in order to raise money for capital expansion. I emphasize the words “capital expansion” because this money is not envisaged to be raised for the replacement of worn-out plant or obsolete plant, which was the argument which the hon. the Minister used in reply to the Second Reading debate.

The hon. member missed the point I was trying to make. I shall reply to your argument.

Replacements of plant are covered by the Reserve Fund and not by the Capital Development Fund.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. member?

No, I am very short of time. The Reserve Fund, which is there to take care of the replacement of plant, has already approximately reached its limit even in accordance with the requirements in terms of this Bill. If this Bill were to be aimed at replacements, I would take a very different view of it. That is, however, not the purpose of the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to provide for capital expansion and I want to say in the strongest possible terms that to provide capital in this way which means a substantial increase in the price of electricity, is unwise at the present time when inflation is running at the rate of 11,5%. Escom must get its additional capital from the capital market, and not in this manner. It should go to the capital market domestically and abroad as far as it is possible for it to do so. It must be subject to the discipline of the market. If there is not sufficient capital available in the market, through the savings of the people, to do all the things the Government want to do—I am not only talking of Escom but of the Government’s whole capital programme and of the capital programmes of public corporations— then the Government must cut its coat according to its cloth. It must reduce its demands and get its priorities right, and that does not necessarily mean that it must cut down too severely on the expansion programme of Escom. I believe that in the whole programme of priorities for capital expenditure, Escom should enjoy a high priority. However, to levy capital in this way by increasing electricity charges to the extent proposed, is going to impose hardships and increased costs on the economy generally and on the electricity consumers in particular at a time when this should be avoided. For that reason we shall oppose the Bill and vote against it.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister has said in the Other Place—and I am afraid that I was not here during his Second Reading speech, although I am sure he repeated this argument in his speech—that Escom has managed in the past to totally finance its expansion out of loans raised both here in South Africa and elsewhere. This situation no longer prevails and that is the underlying reason why clause 1 has been brought before us. What clause 1 does, is to raise the relevant percentages from 3% to 6% and from 15% to 30%. That is an explicit recognition that Escom is incapable of continuing to finance itself by raising loan capital overseas or on the domestic market. I do not particularly want to go into the question of capital from overseas at this point in time because that is a different argument.

That is a sensitive point as far as you are concerned.

It is no sensitive point with me; I will be more than happy to go into it with the hon. the Minister if he wishes to debate where the causes for the shortage of that vital resource lie. It lies, quite simply, with the benches over there and with the policies of this Government.

Even on the domestic market and even taking into account the increase in the level of prescribed investments that the insurance and pension funds will have to subscribe in respect of Government stock, and for Escom and Iscor, there is clearly a limit to what can be done from that source.

What will the effect of this clause be if it is passed as it now stands? As I understand it, the latest estimate of Escom’s capital expenditure programme till 1985—and I am only talking about Escom—is some R15 billion. I hope the hon. the Minister will confirm that figure.

I mentioned the figure during the Second Reading.

If that is so, what the hon. the Minister is in effect proposing is simply a very large increase in the cost of electricity consumed by the average consumer. That is over and above increases which over the last 12 to 15 months have been well in excess of 100%. That is now beginning to have extremely severe adverse effects.

What is the hon. the Minister proposing? Because the Government will not change the one thing they could change to improve the situation, he is simply saying that we must now all pay more for electricity. I do not think I can propose a wager, but I am prepared to say that I think that the estimate of the hon. the Minister that this will only increase the cost to the consumer by 14% over the period through to 1985, is likely, to put it mildly, to be very far wrong and on the low side. I am quite prepared to say that I differ with the hon. the Minister and that the price of electricity in this country will probably increase by 14% by the end of this year, let alone by the end of the period to which the hon. the Minister has referred.

The hon. the Minister has told us that a committee has been set up—an internal committee in the sense that it was at the request of Escom—to look at the efficiency of Escom. This clearly relates to this clause because the more efficient Escom is, the less likely it is that the hon. the Minister would have had to come with a measure of this nature.

I hope the hon. the Minister will agree with us that in the circumstances in which we find ourselves at present it is an encumbent, indeed a severe obligation, upon the public corporations that their expenditure should be trimmed to the absolute minimum and that they should do everything they possibly can to cut back the necessity to charge the consuming public more in order to finance their expenditure. I would just like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he considers that the timing was appropriate for Escom to have spent the money which it has spent on Migawatt House in Sandton. More particularly, would he agree with the statement made by the spokesman for Escom that it was merely functional and economic to provide facilities which include a waterfall and concrete precasting over a vast area, a suspended glass partitioning, all of which has been imported at a time when we have a balance of payments problem? It fits oddly with what the Government tells other people to do. They have three saunas, a two-storeyed clubhouse, a suspended aluminium ceiling, the largest single order for furniture ever placed in South Africa, we are informed, and other facilities such as four squash courts, tennis courts, playing fields and swimming pools. Now that fits pretty oddly, and I am interested in the description given, namely “functional and economic”. The only other comment made by the spokesman for Escom was that most of these were normal club facilities for an organization of this size. I happened to be associated with not an insignificant business in the South African scene and I personally have never run across something like that being described as the normal order of club facilities. There may very well be on certain mines certain of those facilities. However, the sum total of the thing is that on the one hand we have the hon. the Minister coming here and saying that we are short of capital and short of capital from overseas and therefore we must put this thing up although it is going to increase the price of electricity, but at the same time he tells us to buy South Africa and that we are all in hard times. But then we have this kind of thing coming forward. So, Mr. Chairman, we will be voting against this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I am not appalled at the attitude of the hon. member for Constantia; I am disgusted. [Interjections.] I gave him a chance to speak. The hon. member behind him can behave himself and give me a chance to speak now although I know it is an effort for him to behave himself. The hon. member takes up this point and says that the Senate is a House of review and apparently argues further that I argue that there is no point in the Senate reviewing legislation if they have to agree with us here and if the parties have to agree with their point of view. Well, let us look at that argument for a moment. This legislation was introduced in the Senate, in the House of review. If the House of review to which the hon. member refers, has already given a verdict on this legislation, then his arguments is completely fallacious. The House of review to which he refers …

You are being childish.

I am not being childish but if I were then I would be like that hon. member. He is stupid as well.

Order! I think the hon. the Minister must withdraw the word “stupid”.

I withdraw the word, Sir. The understanding of the hon. member is very limited. Hon. members must only give me a chance to put my case, because I gave them a chance to do so.

Why do you stand with your hand in your pocket.

Why don’t you go and play marbles outside?

And why don’t you go and play in the traffic?

Order!

Clause put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—108: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobier, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Hickman, T.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J; (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Maree, G. de K.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mouton, C. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, H.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: J. P. C. le Roux, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

Noes—37: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; Dalling, D. J.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. L; De Villiers, R. M.; Eglin, C. W.; Enthoven ’t Hooft, R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lorimer, R. J.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Suzman, H.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: W. G. Kingwill and W. M. Sutton. Clause agreed to.

Clause 2:

Mr. Chairman, I must say that the exhibition of petulance by the hon. the Minister left me with the very strong impression that he was avoiding dealing with the very awkward subject which has been raised. In any case, I think it is very regrettable that an hon. Minister in this House cannot discuss a subject raised by hon. members of this House in a cool, logical and fair manner.

As far as clause 2 is concerned, this is another clause which we shall oppose. We shall oppose it for two reasons. The first reason is that it imposes a further price increase on electricity consumers, and secondly, it is also an unsound method of achieving the aim which it proposes to achieve. In the Second Reading I have already dealt with the subject of avoiding avoidable price increases of electricity. Therefore I am going to concentrate the few words I have got to say on the second objection which we have to this clause, namely that it is an unsound method of achieving what it aims to achieve. I support the idea that Escom should have the power to make special arrangements with individual undertakings if those special arrangements are in the public interest. I believe that an amendment to section 14 of the Electricity Act would achieve that same purpose. If making special arrangements with individual customers by Escom entails Escom selling electricity at a loss, then the justification for doing so has to be a very strong one. If this is to be done, and this is clearly the aim of this clause, then Escom should not look for recoupment of the losses which it incurs as a result of selling electricity at a loss to other electricity consumers by increasing the price of electricity to them. What is entailed in this clause is that it empowers Escom to subsidize. It is a subsidization clause.

I believe that where subsidization is necessary and where it is justified, the funds therefor should be provided from State revenue funds and not from a particular set of taxpayers or consumers. This is the method which the Government has adopted in other cases, in the case of subsidization of exports and of rail rates. It is also the method which has also been followed in electricity subsidization, as in the case of mineral refining and I see no reason for changing that procedure. I believe it is the correct procedure to follow if subsidizations have to be made. We will not support this clause.

Mr. Chairman, we understand the rationale of the hon. the Minister which underlies the motivation of this clause, in the sense that what he is saying is that he wants to take to himself, in conjunction with Escom, the power of entering into a special contract where it may make the difference between going ahead and not going ahead with a specific project.

On both occasions the hon. the Minister has mentioned that it would basically be export-orientated business that would be looking for this type of guarantee—that is fixed contract over a number of years for the price of electricity—and that in certain circumstances, this would require the hon. the Minister to build up a fund to cover the fact that he would not be then in the position to escalate the costs as they went along. While we have a sympathy for that, and while we understand the whole thrust of the hon. the Minister’s motivation, if one actually looks at the wording of the clause, and particularly at the wording of the proposed new section 13A(b), where it says—

That is of course the hon. the Minister of Finance assisted by the hon. the Minister of Economic Affairs.

… I am sure the hon. the Minister realizes that that is extremely broadly stated. There is no restriction placed on purposes for which the moneys referred to can be used by the said two Ministers. They can in effect, as I understand it, use it for purposes other than export-orientated business and industry. That is our first objection to this particular clause.

Our second objection is, of course, that this is again an additional charge over and above that which was previously contained in the Act. The previous cost allowed was up to, I think, 3%—and not exceeding that—of the total annual income of Escom. Inevitably this is another charge, and that in itself gives rise to serious questions. Our second objection would be much mollified, or reduced to a considerable degree, if the second part of the clause made it abundantly clear that it was in relation to export-orientated business. I would assume, in relation to South Africa at this point in time, that what the hon. the Minister is primarily talking about is the extractive industry and beneficiation, and they have a multiplier effect of which we are all aware. Therefore there is something to be said for it from that point of view.

I also support the hon. member for Constantia in the sense that there is an element of subsidy involved in this. There inevitably will have to be to some extent, whichever way one looks at it. One way or the other Escom is not going to charge the going rate as from year to year over a 10-year period. Whichever way one looks at it, as compared to other users, there is an element of deferment if not of subsidy. If one looks at it from that point of view then it seems to us in these benches clear that that element should be borne by the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It is on those grounds that we oppose the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I want to be very brief on this. I want to deal with two matters. The first is that I think there must be no doubt in the hon. the Minister’s mind that his obligation to reply to what is said from these benches … [Interjections.] … is not an obligation which he owes to us as individuals, but an obligation which he owes to the public. For instance, where the hon. member for Johannesburg North has made certain comments in regard to the new building of Escom which is being erected, the Minister owes it to the public to give an explanation if there is one. He does not owe it to the hon. member for Johannesburg North. That is a question of courtesy, and whether the hon. the Minister wants to show courtesy to other members of the House or not, is his decision. However, in so far as the public is concerned, the hon. the Minister’s obligation is to deal with the allegations which are made. There can be no question about that. If other Ministers are going to follow the example set by this hon. Minister and in a fit of pique sit down and leave the public uninformed as to what the Government’s attitude is, then there is no question about it that it cannot be allowed to continue. [Interjections.]

I want to say one other thing in relation to the clause. It is perfectly legitimate to come forward with a proposal that because one has a particular problem in regard to the encouragement of export-orientated industries, one wants authority to deal with the problem. However, I read the clause from beginning to end, and this clause does not do that. The clause gives a complete discretion to the hon. the Minister. It gives a discretion which can be used for all sorts of things. If the hon. the Minister wants to come along with a proposal to do a particular thing and tell the public and the House what he intends to do, it is one matter, but when he wants an absolute discretion, where Parliament has no further control on the matter thereafter, it is quite a different matter. One of the problems that we encounter is that whenever we want to deal with a particular issue, we find ourselves faced with legislation which is general in its effect and covers a much wider field than that particular issue. I think that is the problem which exists here.

What I am trying to say is that when one has discriminatory tariffs Parliament is entitled to know … Sir, it would appear as if the hon. the Minister is absolutely disinterested in what goes on in this House. He is utterly disinterested. He treats everybody with utter contempt. Who does he think he is, Sir? [Interjections.] He takes no notice of anything anybody says in the House. While we are addressing him he carries on a conversation throughout. What kind of Minister is this?

Order! Hon. members must confine themselves to the clause.

Sir, with great respect, the hon. the Minister’s job is to listen to the debate. [Interjections.]

Order!

That is what he gets paid for by the taxpayers. [Interjections.]

By whom do you get paid?

Not by that hon. member.

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

If the hon. the Minister would listen. [Interjections.] The simple point that I am making is that when discriminatory provisions are going to be applied, then there must be safeguards in respect of them to make sure that they are applied in the national interest and that the discretion is properly exercised. That is not provided for in this clause.

Mr. Chairman, for the sake of the record I want to react to the introductory remarks made by the hon. member for Constantia. I think he will concede that while he was speaking, he was given the opportunity to do so. This side of the House and I myself showed him the elementary courtesy to which any speaker in this House is entitled. Secondly, the hon. member will concede that when I was replying to his speech, the reply did not suit his group on the opposite side of this House with the result that their behaviour left much to be desired. Consequently it is strange that while hon. members raise the technical argument that they are entitled to be informed, they, when they are being informed, do not want to give those who are informing them the opportunity to do so.

I think that one should censure most seriously the conduct of hon. members in this particular regard. I want to explain my own position in this regard immediately. [Interjections.] I shall return to that arrogant hon. member. He must just be quiet for a moment. Despite the choice of words of the hon. member for Constantia when he introduced the discussion of the clause, I replied to his speech in a courteous way. He knows this to be true. As an honest person, and if those standards still apply, he will be the first one to concede this. I think that it is very clear—it must be put on record—that those hon. members have the right to be informed. They have not only the right, but also a terrible need to be informed. I am pleased to comply with this. With all respect, however, I want to say that in my opinion this afternoon’s conduct is reprehensible. I want to condemn it seriously and strongly. I was replying to the speech of the hon. member when hon. members on his side started kicking up a row. I just want it to be put on record.

You have put it on record at least five times now.

The hon. member for Umhlanga was the main cause of what happened. He is suffering from a disease I may not mention by name now, because it would not be parliamentary behaviour on my part.

I want to tell the hon. member for Yeoville at once that he need not preach to me about my responsibility. He should learn, however, that there is something like having a turn to speak in this House, and that if one delivers a speech, one must do so from a standing position from one’s seat, and not speak continually from a sitting position as he and the hon. member in front of him do. I think that he should be told this. He knows—and the record confirms this—that I reply as fully as possible to the speeches of hon. members in debates. If, however, he wants to identify himself with conduct of the hon. members next to him, I must doubt his own conduct in the same way as I doubt the conduct of the official Opposition. He must decide in all fairness what codes of conduct he wants to apply to himself and to other people.

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

No, I am replying to the debate now.

I was replying to the arguments of hon. members, which were basically and fundamentally the same. He knows this. The “holier than thou attitude” does not suit that hon. member. That cloak looks suspect when he is wearing it.

The objections of the hon. member for Constantia and the hon. member for Johannesburg North to the clause are similar on the one hand and differ on the other. The hon. member for Yeoville merely repeated the argument of the hon. member for Johannesburg North. The second argument raised by the hon. member for Johannesburg North, is characteristic of the group to which he belongs. If I understand them correctly, they object to the fact that there is no limitation in the clause as to the purpose for which such a levy may be imposed. From the arguments of hon. members I deduce that if the clause had contained the limiting condition, they would have accepted the principle for that reason. I think that I understood them correctly in this regard.

But then much reduced.

I do not want to evaluate the quantum at the moment; I just want to discuss the principle if I may. Can hon. members not understand what the implication would be if I had to write into the legislation what they are asking for, on the basis of retaliation of other countries against South Africa? I think that hon. members are intelligent enough to understand that I am not keen to take this argument any further at this stage. The hon. member will probably know what I am talking about.

Any consequences of the use of the clause for the purpose of rendering possible longterm contracts at fixed quoted tariffs, not only affects the consumption of power by the consumers, but also creates opportunities for consumers. During the discussion of my Vote and during the discussion of the legislation— hon. members who spoke now, were not here at the time—I specifically mentioned in what particular direction we believed the measure could be applied, i.e. that it could be supplied in connection with industries in general. I want to point out at once, however, with reference to industries which are export-orientated, that the application of the provisions will not benefit such industries only, because there is a tremendous ripple effect which will be experienced with regard to the creation of employment opportunities for people. This will affect those very people whose interests the Opposition so often discuss in theory, but for whom they do so little in practice.

Do hon. members agree with me that there are competitors in other countries who are in fact able to enter into long-term contracts with large consumers of power through their organizations for the provision of power without a subsidy from the general revenue account? This is relevant and basic to the clause. The power-generating organizations of countries which are often the competitors of South Africa in specific spheres of development—economically speaking—are able to negotiate long-term contracts with large consumers of power. I am perfectly aware of this, because I work with this every day. Now, am I to place South Africa in a less favourable position as far as its development is concerned, as against the countries competing with it?

In the private business world it is not exceptional for special arrangements to be made in large contracts as far as prices are concerned. All that the clause does, is to create the mechanism to make it possible for Escom to enter into long-term contracts after approval by a Minister of Economic Affairs in consultation with a Minister of Finance. Thirdly, the hon. member for Yeoville argued that if a limitation were to have been introduced into clause 2, they would have considered supporting it, if I summarize his attitude correctly. After all, there is nothing preventing the hon. members to move an amendment to this effect. To date, however, not even a suggestion of an amendment to this effect has been presented for consideration.

Would you have accepted it?

No, but the hon. member will understand, or he can try to understand, that one has to reconcile one’s deeds with one’s words. The rules of this House provide for the way in which one can give substance to one’s standpoint when legislation is being considered.

[Inaudible.]

I can see that the hon. member does not understand it. If the hon. member for Yeoville had wanted to move an amendment to clause 2 to the effect that he agreed with the creation of the fund, but that it were to be used for export purposes only, he could have done so.

We know what we are going to do.

I am talking to the hon. member for Yeoville.

But you said you would not accept such an amendment!

That is not the point. Let us leave it at that. Now I come to the hon. member for Constantia and to the hon. member for Johannesburg North. They have common grounds here, because both objected to the principle and said that any form of subsidization should come from the general account. This is one of the peculiarities with which we have to contend in this House, i.e. that when we discuss a Budget, the Government is usually accused of over-expenditure. Moreover, the Government is often accused of being responsible for a lack of incentives to increase productivity due to the fact that our income tax structure determines marginal tax on too high a level. But when we come to another debate, they want to burden the revenue account with further expenditure without their specifying the sources of such revenue. I repeat that there is no one who is more aware and more concerned about price increases than we are. It is very easy, however, to raise theoretical objections when decisions have to be taken when one does not have to shoulder the responsibility for taking those decisions. Once again there is a discrepancy here between what people say here and what they do when they are outside and involved in business life. When they come to their own business activities, they queue for assistance. I am not going to do the hon. member for Johannesburg North the disservice of telling him what form this sometimes takes. I think, however, that he will know. He will know how often he finds it difficult to reconcile his various capacities with one another. If I am to be able to negotiate long-term contracts and if it is true—and it is true—that the negotiation of such a contract means that power has to be delivered in large quantities at a lower tariff than cost, it has to be compensated from Escom’s own revenue from power. This is the basis of this clause.

Clause put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—106: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Clase, P. J.; Coetee, H. J.; Coetzee, S. F.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobier, M. S. F.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hickman, T.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Koomhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Malan, C. G.; Malan, J. J.; Maree, G de K.; Morrison, G de V.; Mouton, C. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, J. E.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Roux, P. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, H.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J. Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vilonel, J. J.; Volker, V. A.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: J. P. C. le Roux, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and C. V. van der Merwe.

Noes—35: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bell, H. G. H.; Boraine, A. L.; Cadman, R. M.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; De Villiers, J. I.; De Villiers, R. M.; Enthoven ’t Hooft, R. E.; Graaff, De V.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Kingwill, W. G.; McIntosh, G. B. D.; Mills, G. W.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Olivier, N. J. J.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Sutton, W. M.; Van Coller, C. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Waddell, G. H.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: D. J. Dalling and R. J. Lorimer.

Clause agreed to.

New Clause to follow Clause 2:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper as follows—

1. 3. Section 14 of the principal Act is hereby amended by the substitution in paragraph (c) of subsection (1) for the expression “section thirteen” of the expression “sections 13 and 13A”.

This is purely a consequential amendment.

New Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In order to explain the Bill, it is necessary for me to refer first of all to the procedure laid down for any expropriation in terms of the Expropriation (Establishment of Undertakings) Act, 1951 (Act No. 39 of 1951).

A person who intends making use of expropriation powers under the said Act has first of all by virtue of a resolution of the House of Assembly and the Senate in terms of the provisions of section 2(1) of the Act to be declared an undertaking to which the provisions of this Act may be applied. I might just mention for information that since the passing of this Act in 1951 it has been necessary to declare only three persons or bodies as such undertakings.

After such a declaration the undertaking in question may then apply to the Minister of Economic Affairs in terms of section 2 of the Act for approval that land or a real right in or over land in a specific case which has to comply strictly with the requirements of section 2(1) of the Act and which cannot be acquired by negotiation, can in fact be expropriated by the declared undertaking in question.

†The Minister of Economic Affairs is empowered to grant such approval if he is satisfied that the application complies with the requirements laid down in section 2(2) of the Act and also only after the relevant owner of the rights involved and the local authority concerned have been given notice and invited to submit any representations they wish the Minister to take into consideration when he finally considers the application. Only after the Minister has approved the application is the applicant or approved undertaking entitled to serve the owner of the right concerned with an expropriation notice.

Section 7 of the existing Act enables an undertaking to enter upon land it proposes to obtain for the purpose of ascertaining the suitability of such land. As the definition of “land” in section 1 includes “a real right in or over land”, it follows that a “declared” undertaking should also be able to enter upon land to investigate the suitability of a real right. As doubt has been expressed whether this interpretation is acceptable in terms of the present wording of section 7 of the Act, it is proposed in clause 1 of the Bill to substitute section 7 in order to obtain complete clarity on the interpretation of the law in this respect.

Hon. members will observe that, although principles exactly similar to those in the existing section 7 are contained in the proposed new section 7, the redraft of the section is being proposed in order to bring it in line with section 6 of the Expropriation Act, 1975 (Act No. 63 of 1975).

Mr. Speaker, I listened with care to the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech and I want to say immediately that we on this side of the House are going to support the Bill. We see it as an improvement on existing legislation. We believe the meaning given to the phrase “in the case of any real right” gives real teeth to the provision which the original Act did not do. In the interest of those concerned, particularly the undertakings already in existence and those that may come into existence, we support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we shall also support the Bill. We only have one query in regard to this legislation and that is in respect of the proposed new section 7(3). We raised our question in the Other Place and the hon. the Minister gave an undertaking that if people were in practice prejudiced by the reduction in the period of notice, he would take action. In the light of that, we shall support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to say that we in these benches support the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank hon. members for their support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

With the insertion during 1964 of section 14bis in the Standards Act, 1962 (Act No. 33 of 1962) the South African Bureau of Standards was authorized with the approval of the Minister of Economic Affairs to publicize standard building regulations by notice in the Gazette. These standard building regulations were, by Notice No. R. 1830, published as voluntary standard building regulations in the Gazette on 23 October 1970.

The purpose of this was to give local authorities an opportunity to consider the acceptance of the proposed regulations either in their entirety or in part and with or without amendment, in so far as local authorities are empowered to adopt such regulations and to promulgate them.

This legislation originated in 1945 when the Institute of Constructional Engineers discussed the desirability of model regulations, with special reference to the structural aspect of buildings. In 1946 the Institute requested the South African Bureau of Standards to take the idea further. Accordingly the SABS sent a questionnaire to 233 local authorities and of the 81 who replied, 71 were in favour of model regulations. The framing of model regulations on a national basis was then proceeded with. The task was given statutory authority when section 14bis was inserted in the Standards Act in 1964.

Although it was hoped at the time that the greater efficiency made possible by the adoption of uniform standards and the acceptance of the voluntary standard building regulations would find greater favour among the local authorities, the reaction to this has up to now been limited by certain factors. These factors are in the first place the determination of the content and the scope of the voluntary building regulations because of the nature of the enabling legislation which applies in regard to the local authorities concerned.

Including South West Africa, there are at least five ordinances which regulate the situation, and in addition, each local authority has a great deal of freedom of action within the framework of these ordinances in regard to local enactments. Moreover, although the provisions of the different ordinances are in many respects the same in principle, their implementation differs from province to province and in some instances our courts have given divergent verdicts in regard to practically identical provisions. It can therefore be stated unequivocally that little has come of the real objective of promoting standardization in building regulations and enactments, and that section 14bis of the Standards Act has an inherent weakness. This statement is borne out by the fact that although the standard building regulations were published in 1970, only 98 local authorities have adopted the regulations in whole or in part, while according to the United Municipal Executive there are at present 662 local authorities in the country.

Although I am sure the blame does not rest exclusively with the local authorities—many of the regulations promulgated in 1970 were more in the form of specifications than regulations and were therefore not acceptable or capable of practical implementation by all local authorities, especially the smaller ones—the fact remains that in the absence of an authoritative central authority which can ensure that uniform regulations are applied, give guidance, ensure co-ordination and strive purposefully for standardization, the application of the existing section 14bis of the Standards Act can at best be described as a good exercise.

In the past four years in the private sector alone, R2 852 million has been spent on the erection of buildings in the major centres of the Republic. If through standardization and general efficiency only 2% of this could have been saved, the outlay would have been reduced by R57 million.

Against this background and by virtue of a recommendation of the Continuation Committee for the Anti-Inflation Charter with reference to standard building regulations, the Bill now under discussion was drafted and accepted in principle by the Government.

In framing the Bill it was necessary to take the following aspects into account—

1. (a) the fact that changes cannot be brought about overnight;
2. (b) circumstances which differ from place to place and from province to province. Regard had also to be had to the Cape Divisional Council system and the other forms of local government that one comes across in other provinces;
3. (c) the fact that the nature and requirements of building operations are often determined by the nature, composition and needs of the various population groups; and
4. (d) the desirability and necessity to introduce uniformity and standardization as far as possible, while at the same time making the legislation pliable and flexible to facilitate its adaptation to changing circumstances.

An attempt has accordingly been made to retain existing and known principles as far as possible because this will involve the least disruption, delay and criticism.

I now wish to discuss the clauses.

Clause 1:

As is customary, clause 1 contains the necessary definitions and it will be noticed that the administration of the legislation is entrusted to the Minister of Economic Affairs. Because it is a standard measure, the necessary powers are vested in the Minister in clause 28 to delegate certain of his functions in terms of the Bill to the SABS.

It will be noted that the definition of “building” is exceptionally wide. The reason for this is, of course, that the Bill is an enabling measure and the national building regulations which will be promulgated in terms of clause 17 will indicate precisely in respect of which buildings the minimum standards contained in the national building regulations are applicable and the precise nature of the building operations to be controlled. Obviously the interests relative to human health and safety will be of primary concern.

Clause 2:

Clause 2 provides that unless the Minister of Economic Affairs otherwise decides, the provisions of the Bill shall be applicable in the area of jurisdiction of all local authorities. This provision is really self-explanatory when the nature and circumstances of local authorities throughout the country are borne in mind. There are parts where no building control in terms of the Bill will be necessary. The policy will be to apply the Bill where building control is presently applied by local authorities, and, of course, where the nature of new development, whether by industry or the mines, makes such control necessary.

It also contains the new principle that in respect of Government building work, the plans, specifications and certificates will have to be submitted in advance to the relevant local authority for its information in order to confirm that the erection of the building will comply with the national building regulations. These requirements will enable local governments to decide in advance how the building concerned fits into its own traffic and service plans.

For obvious reasons, the clause also provides buildings having security implications, such as prisons, be exempt from submitting these plans, specifications and certificates.

Clause 3:

Clause 3 provides that the draughtsman of a plan must make known his identity on plans, specifications and documents.

Clause 4:

Clause 4 imposes an obligation on a person who wishes to erect a building, as prescribed in the national building regulations, to obtain approval of his plans from the local authority concerned, and makes it an offence for a building to be erected without an approved plan.

Clauses 5 and 6:

Clause 5 provides that a local authority shall appoint a building control officer who shall examine applications for building plans in terms of clause 6 and recommend the approval or otherwise thereof to the relevant local authority, and shall also carry out inspections during the erection of buildings to ensure that the building work complies with the specifications of the approved plan and the provisions of the national building regulations.

Clause 7:

Clause 7 provides that a local authority shall approve or reject an application for a building plan within 30 days of submission thereof, or, should a longer period be required, it shall advise the applicant concerned within seven days of receipt of the application that the period will be extended for a further 30 days. With the concurrence of the applicant these periods can subsequently be extended for a further 60 days.

The clause also determines the procedure to be followed in cases where approval of a plan is refused and the applicant has to submit a fresh application.

Clause 8:

This clause provides that if a local authority fails to approve or reject a plan, the court can direct the local authority to fulfil its functions and duty in this regard within a stated period, or the court can issue such other order as it may deem just.

Clause 9:

This clause empowers the Minister of Economic Affairs to appoint a review board consisting of a chairman and two assessors in a case where the applicant feels aggrieved by the decision of the local authority in regard to the erection of a building.

In view of the fact that the proposed review board will be a new body, it is not intended at present to establish more than one such body. In the light of future experience a decision will be made as to whether one such body can in fact cope with the work involved, or whether consideration should be given to having more than one such body. The proposed review board has been welcomed from all quarters by those concerned and should prove to be a valuable instrument in the attainment of uniformity of actions and decisions, apart from the fact that it will also protect and promote the interests of those persons involved in the erection of buildings.

Clauses 10, 11 and 12:

The provisions of clauses 10, 11 and 12 empower a local authority to prohibit the erection of a building in cases in which the manner of construction of the building is such as to cause it to be objectionable or a health hazard, or to direct an owner to resume the erection of a half completed building, or to arrange for dangerous or dilapidated structures to be demolished.

At present, local authorities have similar powers in one form or another and it is essential that these powers be vested in them for the maintenance of good order and that known and established practices can be continued.

Clause 13:

In respect of certain minor building works which will be defined in the national building regulations—here we have in mind smaller outbuildings and alterations such as the putting in or removing of doors and windows, etc.—and in respect of which it is deemed unnecessary to obtain the formal approval of the local authority, building control officers will be able to grant exemption to an applicant in terms of clause 13 for the submission of a building plan for the erection of such building.

Clause 14:

It is deemed necessary that control be exercised over the occupation of unfinished or half finished buildings, and for this reason clause 14 provides that newly erected buildings may only be occupied after the issue of a certificate of occupancy, which ticket shall be issued to an applicant by a local authority within seven days of his applying therefor.

The definition of “building” also includes “portion of a building”, and this means that a certificate of occupancy may be issued for the finished portion of a building.

Clause 15:

This clause gives a building control officer or anyone else appointed by a local authority the necessary authority to carry out inspections of building work and the progress made with the erection of buildings.

Clause 16:

This clause enables the Minister of Economic Affairs, after consultation with the Administrator concerned, to have a survey made of the adequacy of measures to combat fire, floods or disasters in respect of a specific area or building project, and also, if the local authority is unable to carry out the investigation, to instruct the South African Bureau of Standards to do the work!