Mr. Chairman, there are still a number of hon. members to whom I owe replies. Inter alia, there is the hon. member for Yeoville. Unfortunately he could not be here yesterday evening. The hon. member raised a few questions to which I still have to react. He said yesterday—

The hon. member has just returned from that territory and I believe that he is in a proper position to judge—he, together, with other hon. members of the NP, the NRP and the SAP who visited the territory.

In these times, there is talk of peace forces. There is talk of peace forces in the Middle East, of peace forces here and peace forces there. In the northern parts of South West Africa—including Caprivi, Kavango and Ovambo—the S.A. Defence Force has been essentially a peace force. In the first place the S.A. Defence Force was present in that territory with the object of protecting the lives of people. For that reason it has been the practice throughout that the leaders of those nations have made a point of ensuring that they received the solemn undertaking from us that our forces would remain there as long as they felt threatened. Up to now we have been performing our task as a peace force.

In the second place I want to say that there should be no doubt—I have no doubt about this, nor is there any doubt, I believe, in the mind of the hon. member for Yeoville—that as far as the internal wing of Swapo is concerned, it is merely an extension of the external wing. The internal wing of Swapo can prove the contrary, in a number of different ways. In the first place it can do so by declaring that it condemns the armed attacks of Swapo across the border and that it is prepared to abide by a constitutional process in South West Africa. In the second place by condemning the abduction of women and children to Angola and in the third place by condemning the murders which are being committed on leaders and other people who are opposed to Swapo. That is the simple test. If they satisfy the people of South West Africa on these three matters, they will have dissociated themselves from the oppressors who seek refuge on the other side of the border in Angola and who, under cover of night, commit outrages against the lives of innocent people.

If Swapo were to have its way in South West Africa—I am now talking of the radical element—the famine, the lack of health services and the chaotic conditions at present prevailing in Angola, would spill over into South West Africa. I pointed out yesterday that Marxism was not interested in the economic upliftment of people in Africa, and that they were also not interested in raising people’s standard of development. They are only interested in capturing strategic points and retaining them by military force. For that reason I say that it is in the interests of South West Africa, and also in the interest of the Republic of South Africa, that all the people in South West should develop in an orderly manner and that the right of existence should be ensured for each of the population groups. I believe that that was the spirit of the Turnhalle. The S.A. Defence Force will also make its contribution to preserve that spirit.

Furthermore, the hon. member for Yeoville raised another important matter when he said—

I do not think one can find fault with the hon. member’s definition of the position. That may well be part of the Western approach. But I am not quarrelling with the West as a whole. I am only quarrelling with that part of the West which is subjecting its ally in South Africa to this unscrupulous and false arms embargo resolution which was adopted by the Security Council. We shall continue indefinitely to bring this matter to their notice until righteousness again prevails in the West. I want to point out to the hon. member for Yeoville that three statements of fundamental importance have recently appeared in articles. Yesterday I referred to one of them. This is the speech made by Dr. Brzezinski before the meeting of the Trilateral Commission.

In his speech he said, inter alia—

That is what he says, whatever it may mean. They advocate a new world order. He then goes on to state how that new world order will affect Southern Africa. I quote again—

Now the hon. members must listen to what his “justice” is—

As far as the Republic of South Africa is concerned, he admits that it will take a little longer. That brings me to an article written in connection with this sort of point of view, which comes from the West. I quote from an article which appeared in the American Air Force journal, Current News—

Sir, we saw that again recently in the Horn of Africa. This article ends as follows—

If the hon. member tells me that we must understand the West, I want to tell him that the West must make it possible for us to understand it. It was in Angola that Africa became disillusioned with Western leadership, because up to that stage half of Africa was prepared to stand by America. They refused to condemn South Africa at their meeting. But it was the collapse of American leadership in Angola which caused that half which had blocked a hostile resolution against South Africa to veer round and look for another strong man whom they could follow.

Sir, I referred to Angola yesterday evening. I want to do so again. We are being condemned because we were in Angola on a limited scale, but there was a time when American aircraft offloaded arms at military positions and bases in Angola which were held by South African troops. I was there myself and I saw those arms being offloaded. What happened then? President Ford spelt it out for us when he said: “It was a disastrous decision by Congress”. My question is: Why was that congress misinformed? I think the reason is that influences are at work in the West which achieve two things. In the first place, there is an attempt “to out-Moscow Moscow”. Sir, one cannot do that. If one has an opponent, one must not try to move close to him in order to appear better than him. I have a high regard for that hon. member, but he will agree with me that the day he accepts our policy he cannot remain a Prog. He will then have to become a Nationalist. The same applies in international politics. I want to tell him that one meets with a desire on the part of some Western leaders “to out-Moscow Moscow”. But that is something which cannot be done and for that reason, Black Africa chooses strong people when they see that others are weaklings.

The second aspect is set out in a very interesting article which I suggest the hon. member should read. That is an article in which mention is made of a Hungarian professor who writes about the way in which Marxism is manipulating the Christian world to achieve its own purpose. The hon. member knows as well as I do that in Russia they not only persecute Christians, but members of the Jewish nation are still being maltreated there. I just want to quote the introduction to the particular article—

That is the crux of our problem when we encounter non-military problems: The civilized Westerner is being made to believe by Marxist propaganda—and he has already half-swallowed it—that Christianity should be identified with communism if he wants to live his life to the full. That is what is dangerous to Southern Africa and why, if the West does not adopt a different standpoint on these cardinal issues, it cannot win the struggle. That is why we must gird on our harness, for we have a message for Southern Africa. Our message is this: Do not cause havoc in this country if you want to develop; if you want to develop, use us and accept our leadership in the technological field, in the economic field and in many other fields. We are not threatening you as it is alleged in the UN motion, i.e. that we are attacking our neighbours. That is not true. Not a single word of that is true. South Africa is at the disposal of Southern Africa if they want to accept us as a self-respecting nation.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister why he did not disclose the information which he has just given about America and Angola, to Parliament at an earlier stage? Why does he only furnish it now?

If the hon. member will read the speech which I delivered during the 1976 debate on the motion of no confidence he will find three-quarters and even more of this information there.

Why were you not more outspoken at the time?

Surely the hon. member knows that at that stage I furnished reasons as to why I did not want to speak. The hon. member would do well to read that speech; it would do him good. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Yeoville went on to say that he differed with me on “the percentage of non-Europeans in the S.A. Defence Force”. Then he quoted figures from the budget, but those figures reflect only a part of the budget for in the main item, “Landward Defence”, many other relevant figures are included. The hon. member mentioned 2,5%. Let me just remind him that he must not forget about 31 Battalion, 32 Battalion, 21 Battalion, the SACC and the naval shipyard, because if he considers the many non-Whites employed there, he will find—that is my information—that it is closer to 12% or 14%.

Of the entire Defence Force?

I am talking about the Permanent Force now.

But I am talking about the entire Defence Force.

But surely one cannot talk about that, because one has national service for Whites. After all, we do not have compulsory national service for Coloureds and the hon. member knows that we cannot introduce that now.

Yes.

He also knows that we cannot introduce compulsory national service for South African Indians.

Yes.

Very well, then. Then I do not know why we should quarrel with each other.

The hon. member for Warmwatersberg … [Interjections.] I mean, of course, the hon. member for Witwatersberg, but he spoke as if his constituency was called Warmwatersberg. [Interjections.] The hon. member has rightly referred to one important aspect which I also want to submit to the hon. member for Yeoville for consideration: Marxism is setting an enslavement process in motion under the noblest of cloaks. It is not satisfied with being met half-way. A committee recently made a study of modern Marxism and articles were written about it. The London Daily Telegraph published those articles and, inter alia, made the following comment—

That is what we must remember, and if we remember that, we will also be very careful in this country about the kind of propaganda we make, and we will make sure that we do not perhaps play into the hands of Marxism.

The hon. member for Ladybrand talked about psychological warfare on the part of the enemy. He raised the very interesting question of whether farmers’ organizations should not come forward and render more assistance to their fellow-farmers who are called up for compulsory military service. That is a very interesting idea and I trust that it will be followed up by the farmers’ organizations for consideration.

The hon. members for Eshowe and Wonderboom both referred to the munitions industry. I referred to the matter yesterday, but I want to make a few additional observations. Since the inception of the Defence Planning Committee under chairmanship of the Chief of the Defence Force, and the amalgamation of Armscor and the Armaments Board, an excellent organization has come into existence which has made considerable progress in making proper control and planning possible. I must say that Armscor has recently developed with leaps and bounds. It is today one of our national assets. The capital investment in Armscor and its subsidiaries amounts to R700 million, and the co-operation with private industry is not only good, it is excellent. All industrialists testify to that. I want to add that during the past two or three months, under the direction of Armscor and with the assistance of private industry, South Africa has made exceptional breakthroughs in various fields in respect of weaponry. I do not want to go any further than that. I only want to say this: We are not boasting and we are not threatening anyone, but those who threaten us, should not underestimate us.

The hon. member for Malmesbury has referred to the success achieved with the economizing policy that was adopted. I am pleased that he has supplied information in this connection, because the Defence Planning Committee to which I have just referred, has revised the whole philosophy of the defence family, especially of the Defence Force, and that philosophy is based on certain principles. It is based, firstly, on equipment consciousness. All our bases are therefore inculcating the realization that the equipment belongs to the State, and that it should only be treated well. Secondly, there is a simplification of weapon systems and a modernizing of old arms and equipment. A proper management technique has also been introduced with the assistance of leading persons in private industry, and an efficiency audit takes place on a regular basis. The hon. member has therefore rightly stated that the economizing policy has begun to bear fruit.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central referred to the Bushman Battalion. A little smile comes to one’s face when one thinks of them. Nevertheless, they are effective. The hon. the Prime Minister has also met them already and I think he will agree with me that one can stress their effectiveness with a bit of a smile.

The hon. member has also referred to the membership of hon. members of the House of Assembly to commandos. Section 2(1) of the Defence Act prevents the calling up of members of Parliament, and for that reason we encourage affiliated membership. Uniforms are issued to such members and a minimum is laid down as regards the attendance of practices. The hon. member is correct, because in this way hon. members can satisfy themselves in this way with affiliated membership.

The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet also spoke about the motivation of servicemen. He told me that he would not be here today. I just want to mention in this connection that under the new dispensation, we have 589 cadet detachments with 125 000 cadets. Cadet officers are being trained. An amount of R32 million has been budgeted for the cadet units. I trust that this is only the beginning of even greater development in respect of our cadet organization, also for the Coloureds and other population groups.

The hon. member for Stilfontein spoke about the attitude of parents, and I thank him for having raised this matter. The former Chief of the Defence Force once said something very nice. He said the accusation was often made that generals and admirals wanted war. To that, he replied—

because they know what it is.

In that spirit we should also motivate parents to place their sons at the disposal of the country’s instruments of security. The hon. member also referred to the companies which adopt the right attitude to national service. That is true, because our employers’ organizations are coming forward in ever increasing numbers—especially in consequence of appeals by the Director General of Resources—to persuade employers to display the right attitude to national service.

The hon. member for Simonstown referred to two matters yesterday evening, and one of them was the matter of the families of members of the Navy who had gone to France. It is true that a storeroom in which furniture had been stored, was gutted in a fire.

†According to the information at my disposal the SADF Fund has advanced a rent-free loan of R2 000 per member until such time as insurance claims have been settled. Therefore the interests of these families are being looked after.

*The hon. member also referred to the personnel transferred to Pretoria. My information is that they have all been provided with either a military house or a rented house. I think we must leave it to the Chief of the Defence Force and Chief of the Navy to determine how many personnel there should be. I originally granted approval for a certain number submitted to me, and my information is that that number has not increased. For the sake of forward planning, we must have it done that way.

The hon. member for Wynberg has asked for a bigger Permanent Force. No one is opposed to such a proposal. During the past year, the Permanent Force increased in number by 16,5%. There are blueprint posts which will be created as soon as the funds and the manpower become available. As the hon. member will remember, I announced that we were going to take certain steps in connection with the parachute battalion. The two-year national service system was introduced precisely in order to cope with part of our problems, viz. to ensure by means of a two-year national service what we cannot achieve by way of a Permanent Force brigade or larger unit, namely that we have continuity, that the maintenance of equipment can be done more efficiently and that one retains one’s leadership for a longer period. I just want to tell the hon. member that although I am not opposed to an enlarged Permanent Force for the Defence Force, we must bear one thing in mind, i.e. that the South African Citizen Force and Commandos have a very proud military tradition. In my view, it would be a flagrant mistake on the part of South Africa if it were to do anything to harm its Citizen Force and its commando forces in any way. We must ensure that there is an effective Permanent Force at all times, but we must not do anything which will hurt the pride of the Citizen Force and the commando forces, or which will detract from the contribution which they make in the military sphere, because they are making a particularly great contribution.

Nobody is suggesting anything like that.

The hon. member presented this in such a manner yesterday evening that I gained the impression that he wanted to minimize national service and what it entails a little. If that was not the hon. member’s intention, I accept it. We must, however, put it in proper perspective that a larger Permanent Force is necessary and that no injustice should be done to the Citizen Force or the commando forces.

I have just about dealt with all the members’ arguments, except those raised by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. The hon. member for Pretoria West has replied to most of the arguments raised by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti. The hon. member has set out very clearly that it is not necessarily true that a person’s academic qualifications and his university training prove his leadership. It is definitely an asset and a contributory quality, but such a person still has to prove his leadership. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti did something in the House with which I cannot agree. The hon. member referred to a teacher who performed certain civil functions and, in the process, used words like “It is said; I am being told; it has been stated”. I now want to ask—in view of the fact that the hon. member has been in the House for a long time— whether he has gone to the officer in charge of his command and discussed the problem with him. If he has not been to see him, has he gone and discussed the problem with the Chief of the Defence Force or with the Chief of the Army? The hon. member did not do that, because then he would have told me so. If he has not been to see any of them: Did he state the problem at the Minister’s office? He did not do that either. This Parliament is not there for the purpose of spreading stories about nameless people. If the hon. member wants to obtain the full facts, he can go and see the military secretary at my office or he can go to the parliamentary officer at the office of the Chief of the Defence Force and if he does not want to come to either one of us, he can go to the Chief of the Army or to the officer in charge of the command, where he can obtain all the information. The hon. member need not come to Parliament with those stories. If, after that, the hon. member is still convinced that he has a case, only then must he come and state his case in Parliament.

The two hon. members have also referred to the question of “training of students in various stages”. I admit that the corporal is an important element in the Defence Force, but he need not necessarily have university or academic training to be a good corporal.

†I have been informed that the experience has been that these national servicemen, although experts in their respective professional fields, were totally inexperienced in the finer arts of the application of the military machine. They had very limited or virtually no knowledge of the organization and functions of the different arms of the service and it was therefore decided that all graduates, irrespective of their direction of study or qualifications, would in future be fully assessed in all respects to determine their suitability for appointment to commission rank. The full implication of the junior leaders course and the subsequent candidate officers course, in so far as graduates are concerned, are still to be assessed and until such time as these courses have been completed judgment thereof is held in abeyance.

*If the hon. member has any positive suggestions, he can submit them to the office of the Chief of the Defence Force. Such suggestions will be considered. I do not think the hon. member’s suggestions, as he explained them yesterday evening, are very practical.

The hon. member for Maitland discussed psychological warfare. I think I have already dealt adequately with that in my replies to other hon. members.

The hon. member for Somerset East has expressed his appreciation for the chaplains service. I am pleased that he has done so. There is an excellent spirit between the various church denominations and the Defence Force. I think the Chaplain-General deserves great appreciation for the manner in which he handles this aspect. Apart from their ordinary work—which covers a wide field— the chaplain service also purchased and distributed 74 000 Bibles in 13 different languages last year. The Marxists will not like this, because it does not suit their purpose.

†The hon. member for Musgrave raised the matter of volunteer service action. To a certain extent such service has been implemented in the civil action programme. The hon. member for Yeoville, who has seen this in practice, can inform the hon. member for Musgrave in this regard. Other State departments, of course, do the same type of work. However, I think what the hon. member really has in mind goes further than this, but my opinion is that this is a task to be carried out by cultural or social societies. However, if one allows these societies to operate amongst the youth of the country, of whatever race group, there must be one condition, i.e. that they are anti-Marxist. They must clearly spell it out to all the young people that South Africa is an anti-Marxist country and rejects everything concerning Marxism. The S.A. Defence Force is already engaged in many activities of this kind. We have our cadet system and we are subsidizing other youth movements. I do not think the hon. member can expect the SADF to take this task too on its shoulders. I believe that should be done by some other department. The SADF will always help as far as possible, but I do not think we can carry that extra burden.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question to clarify one aspect? When we talk about an internal peace corps—just to use a name—is the hon. the Minister saying that if such an organization existed, on the grounds that he stated, subject to all the provisos, that those who participate or serve in that way would get some exemption from alternate service in the Defence Force?

No, I am not saying that, emphatically not. This service is extra service they should render.

*The hon. member for Oudtshoorn spoke about relations between the public and the Defence Force. That is an important matter. I want to ask the hon. member to do some evangelization work among other hon. members in order that they may encourage their public and local authorities to display the same attitude towards units of the Defence Force as the people at Oudtshoorn do. Oudtshoorn is setting an example. The city councillors of Oudtshoorn even helped with the cleaning and painting of buildings in which national servicemen are accommodated. That is the sort of disposition which we need today. [Interjections.] I do not know whether the hon. member was also there. I suppose he gave the instructions.

I just want to say that the organizations of ex-servicemen deserve appreciation from us and from the public. At present they are collecting funds to build a home for ex-soldiers. I trust that they will be successful. They also plan to erect a memorial to the soldiers who have been killed in action since 1961.

The hon. member for False Bay spoke with great positive appreciation of the activities of the Navy. On behalf of the Navy, I want to thank him for that.

I think I have now replied to all the different matters which hon. members raised.

Yesterday I referred to the combat school which we want to establish at Sishen. I announced that an exercise would be held at the combat school in the near future and that parachute units had already been called up. I am announcing this now so that rumours about this exercise will not be spread throughout the country.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether this combat school at Sishen has a name yet, and if not, whether he would consider naming it after one of the generals of the Second World War?

We have already named many places after generals of the Second World War. If we can find a suitable name for this school, we shall do so with the greatest of pleasure. There is also still the Air Force base at Hoedspruit that has to be named. We name many places after senior officers of the Defence Force. The submarine base at Simonstown has been named after a former Chief of the Defence Force, and the name of Gen. Van Ryneveld has already been immortalized at Voortrekkerhoogte.

I just want to refer to what the hon. member for Worcester has said about vigilance, and make an appeal to people, when the Defence Force takes steps to arrange an exercise or a call up of people, to stop spreading all kinds of rumours. We must leave it to the commanding officers of those soldiers to determine where the soldiers will be sent. It has become a fashion that whenever anything happens in the Defence Force, everybody knows what is going to happen the day after tomorrow. That is a harmful trend and something which must be guarded against.

Vote agreed to.

Vote No. 5.—“Transport”:

Mr. Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the half hour. The new Road Transportation Act passed by Parliament last year, has been gazetted and has been in operation since 1 January 1978. This Act has, as the hon. the Minister and hon. members know, been designed to remove much of the red tape which had become a feature of the old Motor Carrier Transportation Act. It was designed to streamline control of road transportation, at the same time relaxing those controls, in certain instances, to allow a greater degree of competition with the Railways. As a member of the commission which had a lot to do with the drafting of the new Act, I believe it was a major step forward in road transportation legislation, a considerable improvement over the old Act and containing certain radical changes, changes which are undoubtedly in the public interest. However, like all new legislation there have been some teething troubles which have cropped up in the ensuing period, some to do with the administration of the Act itself and some to do with the regulations laid down by the hon. the Minister in terms of the Act. It is these teething troubles that I would like to raise with the hon. the Minister today. Of necessity my speech will be a series of questions and I will understand if the hon. the Minister has some difficulty in dealing with everything. But I want to make known to the hon. the Minister that there is considerable disquiet about certain aspects of the Act. I think it is just in the nature of teething troubles.

Firstly, the matter of temporary permits is one which I believe deserves the urgent attention of his department. Industry, commerce, trade and business are totally bewildered at the moment at the decision-making process involved in the granting of temporary permits. Far too much time appears to be spent sitting and waiting at board offices, waiting for decisions which are made without any explanation at all and without any consistency from board to board or even from official to official in the same board. I am absolutely certain that instructions to all boards must have been issued by the department, for the guidance of all local boards and their officials, but the varying interpretations which are obviously being given to these instructions are causing not only considerable confusion, but are also time-wasting and, as a result of that, very costly. I believe it is going to be necessary to amend the Act or the regulations, firstly to give applicants a greater knowledge of the parameters within which decisions on temporary permits are made by the boards and, secondly, to enable boards to give some sort of indication to unsuccessful applicants of the reasons for their applications being turned down. Frequently one finds an applicant making an application which will be turned down. He does not know why it is turned down; so he alters the form of the application and re-submits it. But again it is turned down and he does not know why. I know that this is difficult because one has to obviate the inevitable legal tussles which would result if decisions are made which applicants felt are not in accordance with these guidelines laid down. So it is very difficult to embody it in the Act itself. However, I believe it has become necessary for the department to exercise their minds as to how to improve the situation so that applicants do not have to waste their time on applications which have no hope of success at all. Also, the department must attempt to ensure that there is a greater degree of consistency in the decisions made by various boards and by various officials. Departmental guidelines, which I presume have been laid down, will have to be examined to see whether or not sufficient detail is included to make certain that a consistent policy is obtained right through.

On the question of temporary permits, another matter which I think should be reconsidered is the scale of fees laid down in regulation 18. In terms of this regulation—

as a temporary permit—

Also, on top of that prior to the issue of a temporary permit R5 per vehicle is payable for each day upon which the permit is valid. On a cursory examination this does not sound very much, but I am assured that in practice the sums which have to be paid out are considerable. In one case of which I have heard the cost of temporary permits amounted to something like R1 000 per week. One must realize that these fees are over and above the cost of transportation and as such are causing considerable hardship and aggravation. As far as my memory serves me, when the debate on the new Act took place, we did not discuss the scale of fees to be laid down, but I do not believe that it was envisaged that these should become a large source of income for the department. I do not know how many applications are handled per day. I suppose in Cape Town alone the number would be something like 40 or 50. This means that a minimum of quite a few hundred rand would come into the departmental coffers, even before it comes to the R5 per day which is payable in addition to the R10 for each application. Another matter which is causing difficulty has to do with the replacement of vehicles. In terms of section 14 of the Act, there is no discretion in respect of public permits to local road transportation boards in the case of renewals. The result of this is that all applications for the replacement of vehicles, any change in registration numbers caused by change of address, or any applications for additional vehicles now have to be gazetted. As a result of this, there is a tremendous time delay, stretching, I believe, to something like 14 weeks at times. I do not believe that it was the intention of this hon. House that mundane and everyday matters, like the replacement of a vehicle operating under a public permit, should be gazetted. It should be a formality, but because the discretionary powers of the local boards have gone this is not the case. The Gazette is full of such applications and, I believe, unnecessarily so.

I do believe that the hon. the Minister should, as a matter of urgency, introduce an amendment to the Act to obviate this particular piece of red tape.

While I am on this subject, I should like to talk to the hon. the Minister—wearing his other hat as Minister of Railways—and ask him why it is necessary for the Railways Administration to oppose every application for a public permit, even on the replacement of vehicles. To me this is absolutely absurd. I hope that the department has made sure that any opposition put forward on this basis is summarily dismissed. The object of the new Act was to bring about a situation of freer competition. I think it is up to the hon. the Minister to take action on this in the full knowledge that the Railways Administration has committed itself to a situation of totally free competition in something like eight years from now. Objections by the Railways, even to the replacement of public permit vehicles, makes nonsense of the intentions behind the Act.

As the hon. the Minister knows—in terms of section 15 of the Act—in considering any application the National Transport Commission or any local road transportation board must regard railway tariffs as being reasonable. However unreasonable they may be— and sometimes they are unreasonable—in terms of the Act, boards in considering an application, have to regard railway tariffs as being reasonable.

You agreed with that!

Yes, I did agree with that. I agree with it entirely. However, it has been the tendency with many of the boards to include in that tariff, the packaging. Now, as hon. members will know, packaging specifications laid down by the Railways Administration, particularly in regard to breakables, are stringent and in many cases very costly indeed. Glassware, bottles and all sorts of things like these, if they are going to be transported by rail, have to be packaged to Railway specifications, and sometimes these packaging exercises are very costly indeed. Goods which could be carried by road with a bare minimum of packaging have to be expensively packed to Railway requirements on top of having to be subject to a tariff which must be considered reasonable in terms of the law. These two items, added together, frequently make a tremendous difference in the cost of rail transport as opposed to road transport.

Rulings given by the National Transport Commission and various boards seem to indicate that they have interpreted this to mean that the cost of packaging to Railway specifications shall be considered to be reasonable, as well as the actual tariff itself. As I remember—and the hon. member for Tygervallei will be able to correct me if I am wrong—I do not think that this was the intention behind the Act at all. I think we were prepared, certainly, to look at Railway tariffs themselves as being totally reasonable, but not the packaging. I think boards should take into consideration the cost of packaging when they consider whether a permit should be granted or not. I think it is nonsensical and unreasonable to think otherwise, and I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to give some clarity on this interpretation, which is evidently coming from boards.

Still on the subject of road transportation, could I ask the hon. the Minister when a list of exempted goods and exempted areas is going to be gazetted in terms of the Act? I am aware of the fact that a draft list of exempted goods was circulated some months ago, but to the best of my knowledge and belief, nothing has yet appeared in the Gazette. I cannot understand why this should be the case. Although the new Act was only gazetted at the beginning of this year, there should have been plenty of time, before it was gazetted, to come to conclusions on exempted goods and exempted areas.

I now wish to raise another matter, still concerning this Act. It is a matter we have debated on previous occasions. I refer to the question of the persons who shall be appointed to local Road Transportation Boards. In terms of section 4(3)(b) of the Act, one person who is appointed to a board shall be a person appointed by the Minister after consultation with the councils of municipalities within the transportation area in question. Under the Urban Transport Act provision is made for the establishment of metropolitan transport areas, each of which shall have one local authority in the area designated as a core city. It seems logical to me that the Act should be amended to ensure that a representative of the local authority which is the designated core city should serve on the local Road Transportation Board. The Minister has, over a period, consistently not appointed a representative from the Cape Town city council to the local Road Transportation Board. I believe that to do this, without considering the core city concept, is bad in principle. After all, Cape Town is the biggest municipality by far of all the municipalities in the Western Cape. It would be quite ridiculous if local authorities designated as core cities were not in a position to make a major contribution to Transportation Board affairs. I should like to see an amendment to this Act, perhaps providing for an additional member to be appointed to the board.

Another matter, again in respect of this Act, which I believe should be looked at again concerns certain of the definitions contained in the Act. There are definitions of “hired motor vehicle”, and “owner” in relation to the definition of “road transportation”. These definitions have had two very serious effects. I think we all understood that they might have, but in fact I think the effects have been more serious than we envisaged. The right of passengers to hire the vehicle of their choice is being affected. I am talking here about the occasional hiring of vehicles, for example by sports clubs, contract workers going to the homelands, etc. These people no longer have the right to go to anyone to hire a bus for a special occasion. They are now virtually compelled to use the holders of public permits permitting such transport. For example, in the Western Cape area such holders would be the City Tramways or the Railways themselves. The right of choice is seriously curtailed. I believe one must allow opportunities for the entrepreneur who wishes to start a new business. As the Act stands it is very difficult for him to get established in the face of various vested interests. Many Black entrepreneurs, particularly, are finding it difficult to get permits to compete with the established vested interests of people such as the Railways. Hon. members opposite were very vociferous last year about the right of people belonging to a particular race group to serve their own communities. They should therefore support amendments to enable newcomers to get a start, instead of supporting a completely closed shop. You will remember, Sir, the arguments we had on this matter.

While on the subject of Road Transportation Boards, I should like to put a case to the Minister concerning increases in fares. As the hon. the Minister knows, here in Cape Town yesterday an application for further increases in fares was heard. That application may or may not be granted. We have seen numerous fare increases all over the country over the last few months. It is difficult to keep fares where they are in the present inflationary situation, but I would like to urge the hon. the Minister to ensure that his department is particularly tough about such applications, not only because of the fact that they are inflationary in themselves, but also because they have very serious social implications. As living standards fall, the poorer sections of the community are finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet and an increase in the cost of getting to and from work becomes almost the last straw. In cases where it is absolutely necessary to raise fares on services, specifically for the poorer sections of the community, I should like to urge the hon. the Minister to do what he can to obtain subsidies. I know that he will say that there is just no money available for this sort of subsidy, but I think that he must also accept that particularly in a time of considerable unemployment, we are faced with a very emotionally charged flashpoint when fare increases are under review. We saw this in the past on many occasions where an increase in bus fares had led to all sorts of riots and civil unrest.

Finally, on the subject of Road Transportation Boards, I think I ought to congratulate the hon. the Minister. This time I am going to congratulate him—it is quite an unusual thing for me to do—for the gradual phasing out of apartheid on the buses here in Cape Town, something that has been allowed by the local Road Transportation Board. This has become quite evident recently in Cape Town and I am glad that the hon. the Minister is seeing some sense at last and I hope that the good work that is taking place in Cape Town will set a pattern for the rest of the country. I hope that it will not be too long before cities like Johannesburg, which is now unfortunately under control of the NP, and Durban, which is not, when they reapply for the repeal of segregation regulations …

And Pinelands?

Same thing.

Yes, same thing, exactly the same thing. I hope that applications for the repeal of some apartheid regulations will be favourably considered by the local boards. I have said it before on many occasions, but I think it is worth repeating, that the duplicating of transport services just does not make economic sense of any kind. They are expensive and unnecessary. The hon. the Minister admitted last year that apartheid on buses would eventually go. I take my hat off to him for having admitted that at last. I would, however, like to see him hurry the process up somewhat because I do not believe South Africa can afford to waste money on the scale that we do. He can do it gradually by all means to ensure that race tension does not result, but I believe the success which he has had in Cape Town should encourage him to try elsewhere too.

Are you not contradicting yourself somewhat now?

Not at all. I am not contradicting myself at all.

Previously you asked for a free choice of transport.

That is what I should like to see, but if the hon. the Minister takes half a step in the right direction, I am only too pleased to encourage him. If he would not go the whole way which we should like him to do, we are still not going to kick him in the pants for only going half way.

Why not?

Our country is committed to getting away from discrimination, internationally committed, and this is one way of showing the outside world we mean what we say.

Half a loaf is better than no bread.

While I am on the subject of Road Transportation Board applications, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he can tell us of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the refusal by the National Transport Commission to consider an appeal relating to permits for buses to go to the funeral of Steve Biko. There was considerable discussion about this in the Press at the time and I only have Press reports to go on. It appears from those Press reports that there was almost a deliberate attempt to stop mourners from attending the funeral. Why were permits refused, in the first instance, and why was an urgent appeal not considered even though it was submitted after hours? Obviously in a situation like this there has to be some sort of flexibility in the hours that the National Transport Commission sits. The Press reports gave the impression that the department was involving itself in a political matter which should, in fact, be absolutely none of its concern.

I should now like to come to a completely different subject and that is the Dutoitskloof tunnel which has received considerable publicity in the Press and most of it adverse publicity. I can see every advantage the tunnel will have for us. It is a very wonderful concept, a piece of infrastructure investment that will be of tremendous benefit to us. Having said all that, however, I must also say that in terms of the priorities of Government spending I do not believe it should be on top of the list. There are far more urgent priorities that should be receiving our attention, and these are largely priorities that have to do with alleviating racial tension.

Such as?

I believe that things like housing should receive priority. I just cannot agree that a project of this nature should come before the housing of our population.

But the money comes out of the National Road Fund.

Whether it comes out of the National Road Fund or not, when it comes to the Treasury financing the Department of Transport, I believe the hon. the Minister should get together with the Treasury to do something about this money. In order to assist us to assist this priority, perhaps the hon. the Minister can give us some idea of what the final cost will be, allowing for inflation during the period of construction. I am absolutely certain that we should be thinking in terms of much more than R80 million. I think it will be more in the region of R100 million, if it is to be a double lane tunnel.

Mr. Chairman, I want to state my standpoint at once in respect of the Du Toit’s Kloof Tunnel to which the hon. member has just referred. I do not wish to discuss this here in detail, but I think I should nevertheless take this early opportunity of saying what my standpoint in this connection is. This is a tunnel project. It appears to me that the country in general, and especially those people who write letters to the newspapers, believe that this is something which we are just doing for the fun of it. Just because it pleases us and because we like building a tunnel of 4 km—so they say—we want to proceed with the project without considering all the priorities. I should like to tell the hon. member and all those who are interested that this is not so. I should also like to say at this stage that I have an open mind as far as the tunnel is concerned. Why should I force the tunnel on South Africa if South Africa does not want it? That is the question I ask myself.

We want it.

In the first place, I want to point out to the hon. member for Orange Grove that the money in the Road Fund comes from the motorist. Every cent of it has been obtained by means of a tax on fuel which is paid by the motorist. That is why this money is earmarked exclusively for the benefit of the motorist. By law, that money cannot, without statutory amendment, be used for anything but the building of our national roads.

Lower the cost of petrol.

I also want to emphasize that I believe it to be correct that the money we have obtained from the motorist only should be used to his advantage.

If we want to build houses, theatres or hospitals or to embark on other projects, the money required for that should come from the general public. This is the point which the hon. members on the other side keep harping on. They say that the motorist is hard hit by taxation, but now the hon. member wants to take the money of the motorist and to use it for other purposes. Let me say that I am open to conviction. If the country does not want this tunnel, why should we force it on the country? However, I want to add that in deciding—this is the crux of the matter, and I should like to hear hon. members’ standpoints on this—whether this tunnel enjoys such a high priority that it should be built, surely we should be guided by experts and not by housewives who write letters to the newspapers or by people who have a fit because we want to build a tunnel which will reduce the distance between Paarl and Worcester by 11 km. The matter was submitted to me by the National Transport Commission, and I want to point out that that commission does not only have its own expert information and people with expert knowledge of the first order available to it, but also uses the best firms of consulting engineers in the country to advise it in respect of these matters. It is not only a question of shortening the distance between Paarl and Worcester. I do not want to elaborate too much on the merit of this, but the matter has a long history. Let me go back a little further in time. When one drives from here to Swellendam, one may go via Sir Lowry’s Pass and Caledon or via Du Toit’s Kloof, Worcester and Robertson. If one goes to Swellendam via Caledon and one returns via Worcester, one will find that there is almost no difference in the distance. The distance is approximately 141 miles. I am sorry, but I have not yet calculated the distance in kilometres. The distance is 141 miles, irrespective of whether one goes via Caledon or via Worcester. Until recently the intention was to build a national road over Sir Lowry’s Pass to Swellendam. From there, the road would be taken further to Port Elizabeth and from there to Durban. At the same time, the intention was to build the national road— and to rebuild it where necessary—over Du Toit’s Kloof and Worcester to Johannesburg. The envisaged national road over Sir Lowry’s Pass would have included a tunnel through Sir Lowry’s Pass. This tunnel would not have been as big as the tunnel envisaged for Du Toit’s Kloof, but it was nevertheless the intention to build a tunnel there as well. From the nature of the case, the building of such a national road would have entailed very great expenditure. At the end of last year it was decided, with my approval, that we would give up the construction of a road according to national road standard over Sir Lowry’s Pass to Swellendam and that we would build a national road over Du Toit’s Kloof up to Worcester and that from there, a national party …

Hear, hear!

Mr. Chairman, you must forgive me, but the parties sometimes rest heavily upon me. [Interjections.] From Worcester, a national road will be built along the Breë River in the direction of Swellendam. In other words, a new national road will only be built from Worcester to Swellendam.

From the nature of the case, the new scheme holds quite a number of financial advantages, but at the same time, the hon. member for Orange Grove and other hon. members will realize that it will mean a much heavier concentration of traffic on Du Toit’s Kloof, and that it will naturally increase the urgency of rebuilding the road over Du Toit’s Kloof—or the tunnel—because the decision has now been taken. It is nonsensical to speak of a shorter distance between Paarl and Worcester, for one might just as well say that it shortens the distance between Cape Town and Johannesburg by 11 km. In the same way one could say, if the road is built, that it shortens the distance between Cape Town and Durban by 11 km.

Let me now deal with the next point. The traffic volume which has been measured over Du Toit’s Kloof indicates that the road over Du Toit’s Kloof has to be rebuilt. In other words, we have not come up with the idea of a tunnel just because we want the novelty of having a tunnel through Du Toit’s Kloof. If we do not build the tunnel, we shall have to rebuild the road over Du Toit’s Kloof. That road causes a bottle-neck in the traffic, and if hon. members do not know this, they need only drive over Du Toit’s Kloof. Then they will realize at once that something will have to be done about the road over Du Toit’s Kloof within the foreseeable future. That is why the Du Toit’s Kloof project has been included in the programme. Having decided that something has to be done about the road over Du Toit’s Kloof, we come to the question: What should we do? Should a road be built or should a tunnel be built? Now I want hon. members and the people who are so quick to write letters to newspapers to take the following into account: If one builds a national road a long a specific route and we assume that that national road will cost R20 million over a specific distance, and will not reduce the distance between two specific points, it means that one is going to build that road merely because it has to be built, because it will hold no additional advantages. However, the moment one builds a road along a specific route, thereby bringing point A closer to point B, the building of that road has inherent advantages from which one is going to benefit for ever. This is the position with regard to the tunnel through Du Toit’s Kloof. The consulting engineers who made the calculations made a projection of the number of vehicles which crossed and will cross Du Toit’s Kloof between 1976 and 1986. Their calculations indicate that during those ten years—I am now referring to the calculations of the consulting engineers and not to those of the National Transport Commission—the use of a tunnel will save South Africa R68 million in the form of fuel conservation and reduced wear and tear on vehicles. I do not want to burden the House with too many details about the tunnel at this stage, but the hon. member asked me what the cost would be. The length of the tunnel would be approximately 4 km, but because the tunnel involves the building of a short stretch of new road on either side, 14 km of new road will have to be built. The total cost of the tunnel plus the road will be R56 million.

What about all the talk of R80 million?

It is true that R80 million was mentioned, but at that stage the idea was to build a three-lane road through the tunnel, i.e. two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other. After the project had been more intensively examined and compared with other tunnels—the details of which I have with me here—the conclusion was reached that it would be better to build a two-lane tunnel, i.e. one lane in either direction. Naturally, the two-lane tunnel will now be cheaper, and when it is found at a later stage that the tunnel has to be enlarged, a second tunnel can be built, also containing two lanes. This would be more advantageous than to build a tunnel of three lanes now, and that is why the cost of the tunnel is now so much less than the amount which was originally mentioned. The cost of the tunnel, together with that of the road, will be R56 million. If we continue to improve the present road, as it has to be improved—hon. members must please accept that the road has to be improved—it will cost R17 million. This will not mean a large two-lane road in one direction and another two-lane road in the other. It will mean only an improvement of the existing road. The difference between the two schemes will therefore amount to R39 million. The advantage of the shorter distance—many people have simply pooh-poohed this—is that according to present calculations, it will result in a saving of R5,5 million a year. The tunnel will be completed in 1984 if the work proceeds according to plan.

However, there is another interesting factor attached to the building of this tunnel. When one builds a road which holds no additional advantages other than being just another road which will still cover the same distance between point A and point B, one cannot say that there will be any return on the investment. The road is then merely being used for the purposes of a road.

In this case, however, the money which is invested will bring the people of South Africa a return of 9% …

Just listen to that!

Such a return will not be obtained from any other road in South Africa which does not have the additional advantages attached to the building of this tunnel. There are many other important factors one could mention. I think, for example, of the way the mountain will be defaced if another double road has to be built across the mountain one day.

However, what I find strange about the whole fuss which has been made about this tunnel recently, and which was echoed by the hon. member for Orange Grove as well, is that we are spending much larger amounts of money on roads at many other places in the country. These roads are being built for the same purposes, i.e. to shorten distances, and also to facilitate the flow of the traffic. Let me mention a few. The eastern by-pass, which has almost been completed, and the western by-pass in Johannesburg, which is still under construction, will eventually cost R72 million in all. The construction of the southern road up to the Vaal River is costing another R90 million. For some reason, people do not get worked up about this, apparently because it is a road and not a tunnel. The argument seems to be that because it is a road, we are free to spend those enormous amounts of money. In Natal, too, we are spending a great deal of money on roads. The ring road around Durban and the road to Pinetown, which have already been completed, are costing us R78 million. [Interjections.] I am told that to all intents and purposes, this money has already been spent.

I am not saying that we should not spend these amounts. It is being done in accordance with priorities laid down by the National Transport Commission. The roads are being built at the places where the need is greatest. I am only mentioning these figures to indicate the extent to which we are spending the money of the National Road Fund on building roads and that the estimated cost of the Du Toit’s Kloof Tunnel is not such a terrible amount compared to the cost of other roads. Over and above that, this tunnel holds many additional advantages for the country, advantages which are completely lacking in the case of the other roads which are being built.

I want to conclude by saying that I should be glad to listen to the hon. member for Orange Grove and other hon. members if they should try to convince me and the National Transport Commission that this tunnel is not a priority and that we should therefore not proceed with the tunnel. However, the hon. members must bear in mind that an improved road will have to be built over Du Toit’s Kloof, since the pass cannot remain as it is. However, I think the important consideration is that in determining our priorities, we must listen to the experts and not to every Tom, Dick and Harry who writes letters to the newspapers.

Mr. Chairman …

Order! I hope the hon. member for Tygervallei pleads for something for the Free State too!

Mr. Chairman, I think the House and South Africa are greatly indebted to the hon. the Minister for his full exposition of the whole tunnel story. I must tell the hon. the Minister that in the process he wiped out at least three speeches by hon. members on this side of the House. But that is just by the way. The fact is that his exposition was really necessary at this stage, because lately it has become fashionable for every second person, knowledgeable or not, to set up priorities for South Africa. Some of them are perhaps knowledgeable in their own specific sphere, whether it be in the legal sphere or the business world, but others, like the hon. member for Orange Grove, are less knowledgeable, especially in their own sphere. The latest popular cry of the person who draws up priorities—a cry which the hon. member raised once again here this afternoon—is to play off the Dutoitskloof tunnel against, firstly, the provision of electricity to Soweto and other Black residential areas or, secondly, the provision of larger amounts for housing. But the Government does give great priority to these aspects as well.

I am not questioning the merits of providing electricity and more housing in the Black areas. On the contrary, I think that the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development has already spelled out his intention and that of the Government very clearly in this regard. What we do, however, object to is that people so often lose all sense of perspective in drawing up their so-called priorities. Comparisons between the proposed Du Toit’s Kloof tunnel and conditions in Soweto are a creation of the English Sunday Press and are now being echoed like a refrain, both by those who have a knowledge of this and those who do not, as an extreme example of unplanned spending without the least conception of priorities. What is the factual situation? Surely it is generally known and was set out in detail in a statement to the Press on 10 March 1978 by the Secretary for Transport. It was also spelled out in great detail today by the hon. the Minister. The fact is, to sum it up in a few words, that the present Du Toit’s Kloof pass is congested with traffic. I do not think there can be any argument about this. Widening the Du Toit’s Kloof pass, which is 24 km long, to accommodate three lanes, will cost approximately R17 million, as has been indicated. Building an alternative four-lane road and a three-lane tunnel over a distance of 14 km up to where it joins up with the existing Du Toit’s Kloof pass, will cost approximately R80 million. The hon. the Minister spoke about a four-lane road and a two-lane tunnel which will cost approximately R63 million. The wisdom of the alternative scheme could be questioned if it were seen purely in the light of the one scheme costing R46 million more than the other, but then one would be comparing apples with onions, because the fact is simply that this tunnel project cuts out a very steep mountain pass over a distance of 11 km, saves about 45 minutes to one hour for heavy vehicles, and can bring about a considerable saving in fuel. However, other hon. colleagues will enlarge further on the economic aspect of the whole project.

In determining the overall priorities, the question of how that project is to be financed is naturally of cardinal importance. The National Road Fund, which operates in terms of section 2 of the National Roads Act, is exclusively responsible for financing national roads and road construction projects. However, the crucial question remains where the National Road Fund gets its funds from. The National Roads Act provides that a levy of 2,579 cents of the customs and excise duty on a litre of petrol, kerosene, distilled fuel or residue oil must be paid into the Road Fund. An increase in this levy was consented to this year. In other words, the Road Fund is exclusively financed by a levy which the motorist and the ordinary road user must pay.

In reply to a question which the hon. member for Orange Grove asked the hon. the Minister this year, the hon. the Minister indicated that the amount paid into this fund in this way during the 1976–’77 financial year amounted to R125,3 million. For these funds, which have been accumulated by means of this specific levy, to be diverted, in determining the priorities, to the provision of electricity or housing, for example, would be grossly to deceive the road user who pays a levy to maintain and improve the infrastructure which he uses every day. We can take the private road transportation industry as an example. Apart from licence fees and permits, which are relatively low in relation to the cost of roads—the hon. member will concede this—the largest contribution which the road transportation industry makes towards its own infrastructure is the levy on petrol. According to the Department of Statistics, transport companies covered a total distance of more than 836 million km during 1976. In monetary terms, therefore, this is no small contribution which the industry has made to the Road Fund. Therefore, the organized road transportation industry can rightfully demand that these funds be used exclusively for the purpose for which they contributed them. Surely it is nonsensical to say that this fund should be used for another purpose. As the hon. the Minister indicated, the National Transport Commission has spent R78 million in the Durban area in recent times. It has already spent R72 million in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area.

Now the question arises: Was there any newspaper hysteria when those amounts were spent? Was there a spate of attempts to determine priorities in regard to those projects? We can also ask: Would the same or a higher expenditure on widening the Du Toit’s Kloof pass, the same or higher than the cost of the tunnel project, have resulted in the same reaction? I think we have the answer to that. The answer is obviously “No”, because those who are involved with these priority exercises, who are always on about them, see a tunnel as a luxury, as the hon. the Minister said. The economics of the project is not important to them. They either ignore it or they are ignorant of it. One could still understand that outsiders would be ignorant of it and would generalize the project to that extent in order to justify a priority philosophy, although one cannot excuse it altogether. But for an hon. member of this House, who has every means of ascertaining the facts—if his common sense has not already told him a great deal about them—to do this is reprehensible. If this is an example of an effective Opposition, I can only throw up my hands. It is, nothing—and the hon. member must agree with this—but a cheap bid by a bankrupt party for publicity and popularity amongst uninformed people. The hon. the Minister says he is not married to this scheme. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise merely to give the hon. member a chance to complete his speech, but I hope he stops talking nonsense.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Whip for the opportunity. I always comply with the condition he set. The hon. the Minister said that he had an open mind and that he was not married to this scheme. But I want to make a very serious request to him today, and this is that this project should not be shelved just because a group of uninformed people have created a psychosis by their statements. The hon. the Minister and the National Transport Commission must please continue to determine the priority of this project within the framework of the Road Fund and to continue with the project itself according to its merit. It would be a sad day if we were faced with the situation in five or ten years’ time that Du Toit’s Kloof could not be widened any further except at tremendous cost and if we then had to fall back on this project in any case, at a considerably higher cost than today. Then there would also be enough people determining priorities who would want to crucify him for not having done today what we expect him to do.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think we in these benches will deny that national roads are extremely important to both South Africa and its economy. However, the question I think we should ask ourselves in this debate today is twofold. First of all, in respect of the National Road Fund, the question is whether we are placing the right priority on the amount of money which must be taken from the motorists to build highways in relation to the total demand upon capital in South Africa. Earlier in this session the hon. the Minister came to this House and asked for an increase of 20% in the levy on petrol. The purpose of that increase was to obtain extra money for the building of national roads. This is going to result in R25 million more than in the current year being taken into the National Road Fund. Am I not correct? I am asking the hon. the Minister. He is going to increase it from R125 million to R150 million. The question we ask at this time in the history of South Africa, and with all the economic problems we have, is whether it is wise and whether national roads should be rated as such a high priority when we have so many other needs in South Africa today. Does it require an additional R25 million to be taken from the motorist who is already under a heavy burden with the high cost of petrol. This is the question.

How must we then be able to build our roads?

Well, this is the point which is up for debate. First of all is the priority in respect of the total capital available in South Africa. The second one is that, having received this money, are the areas in which the money is being spent of a high priority? Now, the hon. the Minister has said quite a lot about the Dutoitskloof tunnel. The hon. member for Tygervallei also referred to that. Just how high on the list of priorities does this tunnel rate? It is going to cost some R56 million. Over the distance of the tunnel the cost will amount to R8,25 million a kilometer. Over the distance of the 14 km road—which is the balance—it is going to cost R1,7 million a km.

I should like to draw once again to the attention of the hon. the Minister the case of the national road which is being planned between Park Rynie and the Illovo River. I have a very large file on this, and I see there are lots of files over there where the heads of the department are seated. I would not be at all surprised if they all have to do with this particular stretch of road. [Interjections.]

It is a high priority!

The point, however, is that the traffic over this stretch of national road is—according to figures given to me yesterday by the hon. the Minister in his reply to questions—some 38% more than that over the Dutoitskloof road.

But one cannot compare the two. The one road is a mountain road while the other runs over flat country.

I am talking about the amount of traffic over those roads, and I believe one can compare the two roads in this regard. The South Coast freeway is going to cost R25 million, or R1 million a kilometre. That is what it is going to cost to handle 38% more traffic than will pass through the Dutoitskloof tunnel, which is going to cost R56 million, which means nearly four times as much as the South Coast freeway. This is the question we want to put to the hon. the Minister in connection with priorities.

I do know that money is available for the new South Coast freeway. However, I want to ask the hon. the Minister just how much priority does his department give to getting that freeway built. We have talked about the bridge over the Umkomaas River before. That is the real problem areas on that stretch of road. I heard over eight months ago that the problem there lay with the foundations, and a letter I received from the hon. the Minister only yesterday states that the problem is still with the foundation. I want to ask the hon. the Minister why this problem has not been solved and just why the design work on this has not gone along faster and further than it has done over the past year. These are the problems I should like to bring to the hon. the Minister’s attention. In talking about priorities, I sometimes feel that engineers—and I admit to being one myself—tend to try to achieve perfection. In this regard I should like to draw to the hon. the Minister’s attention the proposed closure of the Sterkspruit interchange on the N3, midway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. This is an existing interchange which is fulfilling a useful function for all the residents in the Indian area of Cliffdale, and the White areas of Drummond and Peacevale. At the present time the Natal roads department is building a 1,6 km service road linking the Sterkspruit interchange with the Inchanga interchange. Once this road is completed, I believe the plan is to close the Sterkspruit interchange. This will result in the residents of this area having to travel some 6,4 km more each day in order to get to and from work, if their place of work is on the coast side of this particular area. Why does this have to be the case? Why do the department and the National Roads Commission insist on these standards which are going to cost the country, at this particular time, such a considerable amount of unnecessary money? Why are they going to close an interchange which already exists? The answer is that they simply want to satisfy the standards which the engineers in the National Roads Commission insist upon in the case of freeway design. It is fine to do this at some future date when the total area has developed to a far greater extent than it has until now, but I think it is a gross waste of money to close such an interchange at this particular time in our history.

I should like to move on to another subject, and that is the Government Garage, which is referred to in the annual report. Here I am going to be constructive and offer a suggestion to the hon. the Minister. I notice on page 40 of the report that over the last two years, and including the current year, some 14,8% of the fleet has been replaced annually. During the preceding three years 20,6% of the fleet was replaced annually. What is of concern to me is that this lack of replacement of an adequate number of vehicles in the fleet is eventually going to catch up with this particular department. In fact, if the hon. the Minister’s department tried to catch up on the slack already incurred during the last two years, I estimate that he would have had to budget for R24 million in capital expenditure on new vehicles instead of the R11 million which is included in the present budget. I do not believe he can go on indefinitely delaying the replacement of this fleet.

Therefore I should like to make a suggestion, and that is that more consideration be given to increasing the number of subsidized motor vehicles being used by Government employees. I see from the report that the Government Garage had 14 331 vehicles in its garages, and that these travelled an average of 10 800 km per vehicle per annum. Mr. Chairman, this is an extremely low utilization rate for such a large fleet. In fact, speaking commercially, I would say it is uneconomic. There is a need for greater utilization, and I believe that this could be achieved by increasing the number of subsidized vehicles presently employed. At the moment there are 1 059 subsidized motor vehicles. If one looks at the figures relating to the number of vehicles in the Government Garage fleet, one finds that there is a total of 5 026 motor-cars up to a capacity of 3,5 litres. I would suggest that many of these could be replaced by vehicles owned by employees themselves. Two things would then be achieved. First of all, there would be a decrease in the State’s capital expenditure, and secondly this would assist employees in financing the capital costs of owning their own cars. I am sure they would benefit from this.

In the minute left to me I should like to move on to the question of air traffic controllers. As I am sure we will all agree, these people carry a tremendous responsibility. They have to control very expensive and heavily laden aircraft carrying hundreds of thousands of people during the course of a year. This, I believe, is an extremely great responsibility. Yet, when one examines their conditions of service and their prospects for future promotion, one finds that there is a lot to be desired. I believe that there is a certain degree of concern about this in some quarters, and I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to look into the matter in order to resolve the problem. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti did not in fact attack the building of the tunnel. I think that as an engineer he has enough sense not to do so. However, the hon. member had one problem. Someone once said: “I suffer much because people do not understand me.” I think he suffers a lot because people do understand him. [Interjections.]

You like that, hey?

Yes. Actually I want to say to him that there is a difference in the quality of transport and consequently one cannot compare the transport on the Natal south coast with transport over a mountain pass. Let us take the conveyance of agricultural products as an example. Why must the tunnel be built? Because there is a problem. The mountains through which the tunnel is to be built, cause a problem. The mountain lies in a mist “mis” belt. Sometimes when one gets to this side of the mountain with a truck full of fruit one can be delayed for up to four hours.

What kind of “mis”?

The kind sitting in the benches opposite. [Interjections.]

Order!

Sir, I withdraw that remark. Say for arguments sake we do not want to build the tunnel. Let us look at the road as it is at present. If one wants to broaden the road one will have to incur fruitless expenditure amounting to approximately R17 million. When one is finished one will find that the number of accidents which take place on the road will not drop. Consumption of fuel will remain the same. It will take five years to broaden the road and in the process of broadening it blockages of the road will necessarily occur at certain places. When dynamite is being used no one can use the road and this will result in a delay of a good half hour on both sides of the mountain. There could be three or even four points at which the road would have to be blocked. When such delays take place while the road is being widened over a period of five years it surely goes without saying that there will be a great deal of additional expenditure. Moreover the mountain will be gravely disfigured. When work is done on such a road in this way accidents always take place. We must now weigh up all the disadvantages involved in broadening the road against the building of the tunnel.

What are the advantages of the tunnel? Firstly, the fact is that while work is proceeding on the tunnel, traffic over the mountain is undisturbed. Moreover, the tunnel will result in the time it takes a heavy truck to cross the mountain being reduced by one hour. Conveying goods by heavy road vehicle costs R9 per hour. Every day 700 heavy trucks cross the mountain. If it took each of them an hour less to cross the mountain, that would entail savings of R6 300 per day. If we multiply that by 365 to calculate the savings per annum we find that the annual savings will be something like R3,5 million if motorcars are calculated at R1 per hour. Within 10 years after the completion of the tunnel we should therefore have saved the amount of R35 million with regard to road transport, leaving aside the issues of fuel saving and the other operating costs that would be reduced.

One should not fail to bear in mind that the present road has 50 curves. After the completion of the tunnel 41 of them will be eliminated. Therefore only nine curves will remain. Due to the elimination of curves, fewer accidents will undoubtedly take place. One can therefore say that the expenses involved in accidents on the road will be reduced by at least 75%.

To what regions does the tunnel provide access? As the hon. the Minister said, the tunnel provides access to the Eastern Cape, the South Western Districts, Johannesburg, Kimberley and the entire north. All those parts are linked with the Cape by means of the tunnel.

I now want to point out the ignorance that prevails as far as the tunnel is concerned. The hon. member for Orange Grove has shown time and again that he first goes to the newspapers to blow off steam and then asks the department for details. This was also his modus operandi in the case of the tunnel. Having blown off steam, he asked the department what the true state of affairs was in regard to the tunnel. He is also someone who wants to conserve nature. He wants to conserve nature in the Kruger National Park but it seems to me that as far as he is concerned, the mountain can be disfigured. A three-or four-lane highway can be built across the mountain. The mountain can be totally changed by means of dynamite; that does not matter. Therefore the hon. member’s attitudes are not always consistent. Even newspapermen discover that this is so. Perhaps they discover it even sooner than we. [Interjections.] I just want to say one thing to the hon. member. The hon. member asked whether the tunnel would pay for itself. My answer is “yes”. The hon. the Minister said that it would pay for itself over 25 years, but I do not agree with that. Right from the outset the traffic will increase by almost 6%. The hon. the Minister calculates that it will be 3%, but in my opinion the new flow of traffic it will cause will increase it by 6%. If the running costs are 2% higher than the rate of inflation, this will mean that the tunnel will have paid for itself within 15 years after completion. Moreover, as the hon. the Minister has indicated, it will show a return of approximately 7% to 8%. What, then, are hon. members of this House objecting to? The hon. member for Amanzimtoti showed us very clearly that he wanted to give preference to local projects such as those at Park Rynie and the South Coast. [Interjections.] The hon. member is fully entitled to speak about them, but Act 54 of 1971 imposes the obligation on the National Transport Commission to work out a road network for South Africa so that the major centres can be linked to each other by a proper road network. It is for that reason that the tunnel is seen as a priority. The project is economically justified. [Interjections.] Sir, the hon. members opposite are like a gaggle of geese. I wish they would be a little more quiet for a while. I wonder whether hon. members opposite know how one’s brain works. When one’s mouth moves, there is also movement in one’s thalamus and then one can take in nothing through one’s ears. That is the problem which hon. members opposite have.

Have you got a tunnel between your ears?

They never have the time to look at a matter seriously or in depth. To them it is not a problem because they do not see South Africa in the same light. They do not see the infrastructure of the country as a development of the future. We in this country must prepare for the growth which is coming tomorrow. The growth of South Africa is on its way; one can feel it. Therefore we must prepare ourselves for it. There is no point in waiting until the growth period arrives and then saying: “Let us tackle the tunnel.” By that time the traffic using the tunnel will have tripled and the cost of road transport alone will be R135 million instead of R35 million. That is why hon. members opposite must give attention and why the tunnel must be built now.

The hon. the Minister must please not take any notice of the arguments advanced by the Opposition. This tunnel remains a priority. It links the commercial region of the Cape with the north. Furthermore, it will result in the occurrence of far fewer accidents. Just think how many lives will be saved! Then too one must bear in mind that it costs about 35 000 to train and educate one person up to his 25th year. If we take into account all these things, economic advantages which I cannot go into in a speech of 10 minutes, we see what the real cost of the tunnel is in comparison with its advantages.

As long as one gets to the Free State more quickly, the tunnel will be worthwhile. I call upon the hon. member for Welkom to speak.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to get away from the subject of the tunnel for a bit. Actually, I wish to talk about a matter which is a matter of grave and serious concern to each one of us in this House—those of us who are from up-country and also those who live in coastal towns. I am referring to the oil pollution which takes place on our beaches and along the coasts of South Africa.

As we all know, the whole business of oil pollution came to the fore again a few months ago with the Venpet/Venoil incident 12 miles outside Plettenberg Bay. I want to say at once that I realize that the problem of oil pollution, as we experience it in South Africa at present, is actually a world-wide phenomenon. We know that the whole world is struggling with this problem. I am also aware that to solve this problem is certainly not one of the easiest things on earth. The fact of the matter is that the traffic of oil tankers around the southern tip of the Cape has grown considerably since the closing of the Suez Canal in 1968. As a result of economic circumstances, oil tankers have also been enlarged considerably to make it more economical to transport oil. Consequently, nowadays they can no longer sail through the Suez Canal. Therefore, we have to accept the fact that South Africa’s problem with oil pollution will increase considerably in the years to come.

Allow me very briefly to take this opportunity of extending my hearty congratulations to the Department of Transport, and specifically Mr. Adriaan Eksteen and his men, and to thank them for the fact that through their energetic action, they brought that Venpet/ Venoil incident, which could have resulted in a great disaster for South Africa, under control and thereby averted a major disaster in South Africa. I just refer to it briefly because I should like to indicate in this House what is done by this department.

On Friday, 16 December 1977—a public holiday and the start of a long weekend—the Venpet and the Venoil, with 320 000 tons of oil on board, collided at about 9.37 approximately 15 miles from the coast off Plettenberg Bay. At 10.20 of that same day, all the dispersant-spraying boats belonging to the department, which were spread out between Saldanha and Durban, were ordered to mobilize and sail to the scene of the disaster. The first boat was on the scene within 15 hours. That same day arrangements were made for air reconnaissance to trace oil on the sea and to direct the dispersant-spraying boats. There was the issue of a guarantee of R5 million to cover the costs of pollution, the checking of supplies, transport, manufacture, salvage and the shipping of dispersants, and more than 500 000 litres of these dispersants were used but a dispersant-spraying boat never had to wait for a shipment.

My time is limited and therefore I cannot go into the matter much further, but I should just like to state something here today. If it were not for the prompt and resourceful action of the Department of Transport, the oil pollution resulting from that incident would have been much worse than it was.

I now turn to local authorities. On behalf of the local authorities in those areas, and throughout the whole of South Africa, I should like to thank the department for the contribution and the assistance which that department afforded them. This is of course a matter of national concern and I am grateful that the Department of Transport will carry all the costs of these local authorities in cases where such boats which are responsible for oil spillage can be identified. However, I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. At the moment only 50% is paid out to local authorities if a boat which spills oil cannot be identified. My plea is that the Department of Transport should bear all the costs of the local authorities concerned in future. There are a few of our small coastal resorts which are very popular among tourists but who do not have the financial means to undertake this type of clearing-up operation. I also want to say that South Africa is in the fortunate position that we have taken the lead in many spheres, amongst others the technological spheres. I am also grateful to be able to state here today that we have also taken the lead in the world with regard to the fight against oil pollution. I emphasize this in the light of the fact that various other countries have taken a leaf from South Africa’s book with regard to what we are doing in this connection.

I want to point out a few aspects in this regard to the hon. the Minister. I believe that research with regard to oil pollution in South Africa should be extended considerably, particularly so that we can determine what the effect of oil pollution is on our marine life. In this regard I have in mind in particular the effect it can have on our fish, crayfish and sea birds. We also have to investigate the effect the sprays used to dissolve the oil can have on our marine life. Research also has to be done on clearing-up methods already used and what the results were.

I believe that research can be co-ordinated properly. The CSIR, the Division of Sea Fisheries and also various universities probably have the necessary facilities to carry out research in the above fields.

With regard to funds, we all know that today funds mainly originate from the Strategic Oil Fund and from the owners of ships that have spilled oil. Costs incurred are recovered from them. When one considers the extent of the task and takes the results in consideration, especially with regard to tourism, it seems essential that we should be fully equipped to fight oil pollution. The department has five coastal patrol boats at its disposal which can be used for the spraying of oil, and also two deep-sea salvage vessels. The question now arises, and this is what I want to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister: Are the funds at our disposal sufficient, and should further revenue not be made available in some way, for example increased provision from the Strategic Oil Fund?

With regard to shipping lanes we have once again learned a lesson from the collision between the Venpet and the Venoil. Prompt action alone prevented a major disaster. I want to ask whether the time has not come for tankers to be forced to sail further away from the land. The present distance they have to maintain from the coastline, is approximately 12 miles. Everyone appreciates the advantage to the tankers of staying near the coastline, in that they can make full use of currents, but the damage which can be done to the coastline is of vital importance. Perhaps South Africa should set an example and lay down guidelines as an example to the rest of the world.

In the light of what I said earlier on in my speech viz. that South Africa has taken the lead in the fight against oil pollution, I know and have full confidence that the department did their best under difficult circumstances. It is certainly not an easy task to fight oil pollution. Therefore, I am convinced that we can face the future with confidence and if further research can be done in this field, I believe that we will be doing all our coastal towns and South Africa in general a great favour.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Welkom was very wise to switch the debate from land to sea, because nothing I have heard from that side of the House has dissuaded me from believing that the Du Toit’s Kloof tunnel, that we have heard so much about, is, in the present context of our economy, nothing but a luxury. In fact, it is one of the very luxuries that Dr. Wassenaar spoke about when he criticized he Government 18 months ago for overspending on luxury items. With the extra blockage of vehicles which we are going to have in a tunnel of this length, I do not think we will have seen anything like we are going to experience in this particular tunnel. The hon. the Minister should have a real rethink about this plan. He now admits that the tunnel is, in fact, going to be inadequate. He is already talking about another tunnel in the years that lie ahead.

No. That will be in the distant future.

The hon. the Minister now suggests that it will only be in the distant future, but what will happen is that some experts will come along and persuade the hon. the Minister that it is much better to do it now than in the far distant future, in order to save money again.

I shall come back to you again; I promise.

I always enjoy it when the hon. the Minister comes back to me.

I want to take up a point raised by the hon. member for Welkom. He talked about the collision between the Venpet and the Venoil. This is a subject which I raised in the Railways budget debate a few weeks ago. I want to say that apart from the results of disastrous episodes such as collisions between tankers, there is a great deal of pollution of a less catastrophic kind going on. I am referring to incidents when tankers clean their bilges, tanks or whatever it is. In these cases there is not a collision, but a great deal of pollution nevertheless takes place. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister is aware of a recent decision of the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein, the effect of which is to make it almost impossible for the State to succeed in a prosecution of a ship which pollutes the sea. The reason for this is that the Appeal Court has placed such a heavy onus upon the State that it is virtually impossible to satisfy the requirements of the anti-pollution Act I think the hon. the Minister should at least consider whether the legislation should not be tightened up, as in fact the judges of the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein advised.

The Venpet and Venoil collision raises another very interesting point. I can understand perfectly well why there was not a court of marine inquiry in South Africa, but I think the hon. the Minister should be able to tell this House a little bit more than what we had to gather from a newspaper report of some inquiry in Liberia, I think it was, which disclosed some very alarming facts. It looks as if the collision was caused by the fact that a master or the two masters or senior deck officers were ill-equipped to use sophisticated radar apparatus. If that is so, it raises the most alarming possibilities along our South African seaboard. I know there is not a great deal we can do about that. We cannot patrol our coast and ask for certificates of competence from all sorts of foreign-going vessels, but I should like to know whether the hon. the Minister has a full report of that commission of inquiry in Liberia, whether there are any lessons to be learnt from it and whether the hon. the Minister is prepared to make a statement on it. I fully agree with the hon. member for Welkom that we should consider the possibility of at least demarcating sea lanes, that is to say that we should at least have some kind of general demarcation. We should not forget that there is very heavy traffic around our coast and as we all know disasters have become commonplace. In fact, since the Railway budget debate a couple of weeks ago another enormous tanker has gone ashore on our west coast, and two more trawlers have gone around nearer home. We are now facing a perennial problem and the question which I would like to put to the hon. the Minister is whether he is satisfied that he has at present got a competent marine and navigational safety committee going. I have asked this question before. I understand that there is a group of gentlemen sitting somewhere in Pretoria perhaps, but I think this House ought to know who they are, how often they sit and what their jurisdiction is. It seems to me that we must tighten up the whole question of safety at sea along our seaboard.

There is another point which I should like to raise. I am sure the hon. the Minister knows that we have a system of courts of marine inquiry. These courts serve a useful purpose because they are open to the public, and in this way have public confidence, and can take place fairly expeditiously after an accident at sea. They are cheap because the costs to the parties are obviously not very high. However, I want to make a suggestion to the hon. the Minister. Some of these courts—I am not casting aspersions on any particular officer—have done good work, some have done fair work and some have done shocking work. It largely depends upon the presiding officer, who is normally a magistrate or a retired magistrate. I believe the shipping community would be much happier if the hon. the Minister would at least consider vesting marine inquiries in a judge of the Supreme Court. Hon. members will at once ask me what about the costs. The costs will not go up significantly because, as the hon. the Minister will know, there are no pleadings in a court of marine inquiry. The tribunal is merely asked to answer a certain set of questions. My inquiries show that there would be no difficulty with a judge sitting in these cases with two nautical assessors. As regards the costs of legal representation, in all the courts of marine inquiry I have knowledge of, advocates have been briefed in any event and so the legal costs will not be that much higher. However, I believe it is very important that the shipping community, who have expressed dissatisfaction, should at least be met in this particular matter. The question may arise why a judge should be more competent than a senior magistrate. The reason is that the Judge President will assign that marine inquiry to a judge who has had experience in maritime matters. With all due respect, I want to say that I have appeared before a magistrate who was chairman of a board of marine inquiry who virtually, although not quite, asked how long the skid marks were. That was his experience of sea matters. One cannot have public confidence in that kind of court. I believe this matter should in fact be vested in the Supreme Court.

The other question I want to raise, is whether the hon. the Minister is in a position to tell us when the commission of inquiry into the question of small boats will report. One will never stop the suicidal tendencies of people who go to sea in tubs, but sometimes they take their children and wives along. Our whole Naval Force, Air Force and ski clubs then have to spend thousands of hours and rands looking for some silly ass in the middle of False Bay drifting towards the South Pole. Something has to be done about it. Quite what that should be, I do not know. I hope this committee will come up with something original. Is the hon. the Minister in a position to indicate when this report will be forthcoming, because hardly a week goes by without somebody doing something silly in a small boat at sea?

By the same token I am very unhappy about safety in the air. Only the other day I was on a farm when suddenly a small aircraft landed nearby. I was shocked to see that it was piloted by a youngster who had just obtained his pilot’s license. He had flown from Port Elizabeth to a place near Steynsburg in the Cape Province. He was then proposing to convey people to Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Kimberley and then back to Port Elizabeth. He had no means of knowing just how safe those journeys would be. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker, the hon. member for Groote Schuur, has my full support as regards his views on small boats. I am pleased that he devoted his speech mostly to that. He is not a bad speaker when he talks about something he knows about. He wisely decided to avoid the tunnel argument and made only a cursory reference to it. Nevertheless, it is a pity that he referred to the tunnel without advancing any arguments as to why he is opposed to it All he did was make the statement that “the blocking of the tunnel will be disastrous”. As far as the tunnel is concerned, I should like to point out that one of the basic problems which is being experienced—the hon. member for Tygervallei has already referred to this—concerns the cost of transporting industrial products to the interior.

The transport problem in the Cape Peninsula is one of the most pressing problems with which the big industries here have to contend. The cheapest and shortest route is absolutely essential for the progress of industries in the Western Cape. From here, there are four exits to the interior. The first is via Sir Lowry’s Pass. The hon. the Minister has already announced that plans for the proposed tunnel through Sir Lowry’s Pass have been shelved. Therefore, it is essential for the traffic which would have made use of that tunnel to follow another route. The shortest route at the moment is Du Toit’s Kloof Pass. Therefore, all traffic now has to be routed over Du Toit’s Kloof Pass.

This brings us to the route over Du Toit’s Kloof itself. However, we should consider other existing exits as well. The third route is the one over Piekenierskloof. This route passes not only through Vryburg and Mafeking, but also through Bophuthatswana. Interesting information has emerged from statistics on this. Traffic counts on the route through Vryburg and Mafeking show us that the traffic through Piekenierskloof—and heavy traffic in particular, doubled between 1974 and 1977. This, of course, gives rise to a major problem, one which I myself experienced last year. The reason for this is obvious, of course. Due to the fact that the road through Du Toit’s Kloof has become completely inadequate and causes tremendous traffic bottle-necks as a result, it now happens that the heavy traffic from the Witwatersrand to the Western Cape and vice versa are making increasing use of the route through Piekenierskloof and through Vryburg and Mafeking. That is why we have this tremendous increase in traffic on this route. The danger as regards the route through Piekenierskloof and through Vryburg and Mafeking, is that it goes through Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana is a foreign country and therefore it may happen that this route may become unavailable to us at any time. Therefore, it will no longer have any effect whether the route through Piekenierskloof is still used as an alternative to the one through Du Toit’s Kloof.

The fourth alternative route is the one over Bain’s Kloof and Ceres. According to statistics the traffic—and once again it is mostly heavy traffic—has increased tremendously on this route during the past few years. It is customary for a large proportion of the heavy traffic from the Witwatersrand to turn off beyond the Hex River Mountains to go to Ceres and to proceed from there over the mountain passes to the Western Cape. Therefore, if that route is used as an alternative it would mean that the route through Bain’s Kloof, over Theronsberg and through Mitchell’s Pass would have to be reconstructed. So it is evident that we have four possible alternative routes. The position is, in the first place, that the traffic over Sir Lowry’s Pass has the route over Du Toit’s Kloof as the nearest alternative. Moreover, the route through Piekenierskloof is too dangerous to use as it runs through Bophuthatswana and may consequently be closed at any time. Constructing a new road through Bain’s Kloof and Ceres will cost more than a new road through Du Toit’s Kloof. Consequently, it appears that the only practical alternative which remains, is the one which will be able to carry the traffic of all four aforementioned routes.

It is also interesting to note that at present, according to traffic counts in Du Toit’s Kloof, approximately 4 474 vehicles use that route per day at any given time. If we accept this, I believe that the necessity of doing something to the route through the Du Toit’s Kloof, is proved irrefutably.

The question about the availability of money and as to whether the available money can be used for road construction purposes only, has already been cleared up. Therefore I do not have anything to add in that regard. However, I just want to say that, of the four available alternative routes, the one over Du Toit’s Kloof is the only and the most practical one for use at the moment.

The next matter which I should like to bring to the attention of the hon. the Minister, is the question of liaison between the National Transport Commission and the various provincial authorities with regard to the planning and construction of national and other roads in the provinces concerned.

I should like to make a further brief reference to the promulgation of the National Roads Act. In the period prior to 1971, and up to and including the promulgation of the Act, the National Transport Commission was not the full-fledged road authority which it became as from the promulgation of the National Roads Act—Act No. 54 of 1971. One of the consequences of this legislation was that it was no longer essential for the previous advisory committees to continue to exist. However, liaison with the provinces remained essential. Today I have no fault to find with the liaison and discussions which take place between the National Transport Commission and the technical staff of the provinces concerned. I want to add, however, that in the present circumstances it may be necessary for us to take another and a more realistic look at priorities. Since 1971 up to the present time, the operations and spending of the National Transport Commission have changed systematically. Whereas the National Transport Commission was not obliged as yet to make finance available to the provinces during 1971, it is becoming the practice to an increasing extent for the National Transport Commission simply to have to intervene and provide financial assistance to the provinces concerned. For example, we see that Natal has received R80 million over the past year or two. Similarly, the Cape, the Transvaal and the Free State have also received their millions. Therefore I believe that it has become necessary once again—and especially after the oil crisis of 1973—to take another look at this liaison. I am aware of the fact that the National Transport Commission meets regularly. Previously it was apparently four times a year, but at the moment it is two or three times a year. The meetings are held at the various regional offices and are attended by all the consulting engineers, as well as by other people who have an interest in the planning, design and construction of national roads. The provincial administrations also have the right to send their own representatives to such meetings.

I am also aware of the fact that the National Transport Commission regularly submits its programmes to the provinces. Previously, this happened every ten years; now it happens every three years. This is done with the request that comments be made on the programmes. It is alarming to note, however, that sometimes no commentary is received from the provinces concerned. This gives rise to the question as to whether there is sufficient liaison between the particular authorities, especially if one takes into consideration the disturbing factor that the National Transport Commission does not follow any procedure by which the provinces may be obliged to submit their road construction programmes to the National Transport Commission in turn. For the very reason that I am aware of the fact that such requests are made regularly but that they elicit a reaction only at times, I want to make the statement that this state of affairs may in fact lead to duplication. As an example of this I can quote what nearly happened in the case of the freeway through Kuils River. Fortunately, this was prevented due to the flexible attitude of the National Transport Commission and the expeditions action on its part.

Other people beside myself have gone grey when things of this nature happened. That is why I am delighted to be able to say that the day was saved as far as this matter was concerned. However, the opposite shows in turn that the co-operation between the National Transport Commission and the Cape Provincial Council can result in things like the road over Sir Lowry’s Pass. A tunnel is no longer to be constructed there, but the problem will be solved in a different way. A possible R60 million may be saved in this way. Unfortunately the National Transport Commission is unable to exert any further pressure on the province. That is why I pity the National Transport Commission for having to labour under this lack of liaison at the moment. I believe that the hon. the Minister should perhaps take another look at this procedure. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not also want to go further into the problem of the tunnel. The hon. member for Groote Schuur spoke about security measures at sea. However, I want to focus the spotlight on security measures in the air for a while. The hon. member for Groote Schuur also referred to the boards of inquiry in connection with accidents. A similar situation arises in the air. There are also boards of inquiry. I think that those boards do a very good job. The boards are appointed by the hon. the Minister and consist of knowledgeable people, and I believe that they really are the right people to investigate accidents, both accidents in the air and at sea. In both cases we need knowledgeable people. I do not want to accuse judges of not arriving at proper verdicts, but I think that, in cases of this nature, we really need people who are knowledgeable.

Before I talk about safety in the air, I want to thank the hon. the Minister for the fact that plans are at last in the pipeline for the improvement of the airport at Port Elizabeth. The H. F. Verwoerd Airport is the fourth most important airport in the country, both as regards passengers and aircraft landings. Passengers have increased from 330 000 to 408 000 per year over the past five years. This is a good increase, but we have always had to manage with the extremely restricted terminus at that airport. One is almost unable to imagine what congestion sometimes occurs there. The terminal building is under construction, and I believe that it will be completed by the end of 1979. After that it will be possible to use the old building as an arrivals terminus. I am really pleased that this improvement is now being made at last.

As I said, I want to talk about safety in the air. Recently, there have been newspaper reports from time to time which mentioned accidents, especially those involving light aircraft. The impression is being created amongst the public that a tremendous number of these accidents take place. Actually, it is not so bad. Over the past 10 years there has been a steady growth rate for air traffic, apart from our regular air services. If one looks at the figures, one finds that aircraft have increased over a period of 10 years from 1 660 to 3 029. This is an increase of 82,5%. The number of licenced pilots has increased from 3 460 to 6 360 in the same period. This is an increase of 83%. Over the same period, aircraft accidents increased from 120 to 185. Expressed as a percentage, this means an increase of 54%. Therefore, relatively speaking, there has been a decrease in aircraft accidents.

However, the Civil Aviation Division is not satisfied with this situation, and everything is being done to improve the situation. Various methods are used to make plans and lay down new regulations in order to improve the position. The training of pilots is being examined—both pilots and instructors being subjected to regular tests. Now there is a new regulation in terms of which all pilots must also have licences in radio telephony. Disciplinary measures are also being taken under consideration, and licences may be suspended. Suspending a licence is not so much a punishment for the pilot, but also serves to protect the public. It is essential for the pilot to keep out of the air for a period, and before he flies again, he has to undergo a competence test. Provision is also being made for higher fines for contravening regulations. A fine of as much as R400 can be imposed. Then there are the investigations which are carried out by the boards of inquiry which I have referred to. These boards investigate every aircraft accident very thoroughly. Of course, it will take quite a while before the new measures which are now being put into operation will succeed in bringing about a further decrease in aircraft accidents, but I know that the department is keeping a very watchful eye on this situation. If necessary, they will come up with even stricter measures in future. I think the public may be assured that the Department of Transport is doing its work very thoroughly in this respect as well.

There is one question which I should like to ask the hon. the Minister in connection with aircraft. We have just heard that the tax on petrol for motor vehicles is being used for roads. Now, aircraft also use fuel. I notice that an investigation was made into the application of funds obtained from the sale of aviation fuel. It was felt that these should also be applied to the direct benefit of the people who use aircraft. I think it is very essential to consider this. I note that the commission which was appointed under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Margo, is also looking into this matter. By the way, I just want to mention that I think this commission has a very important task. The whole civil aviation setup in South Africa will benefit from the commission under Mr. Justice Margo because it will investigate the whole matter on a very broad front, including airports and all related matters.

Before I resume my seat, I want to refer to the annual report of the Advisory Committee for Civil Aviation and say that I am impressed by the very scientific, thorough approach which they have towards the problems of civil aviation.

Mr. Chairman, we spent a lot of time tunnelling this afternoon and I was very, very pleased when we managed to get out of the tunnel and into the water. Now the hon. member for Humansdorp, however, has taken us into the air and that is where I want to keep the matter. During the debate on the Railway budget I made some observations in respect of the problems that we encounter at airport buildings and then the hon. the Minister suggested to me that it was a matter for the Minister of Transport. He suggested that I discuss my problems with him today.

Now you are knocking at the right door!

I am, as he says, knocking at the right door and I hope to offer some constructive criticism as well as some alternatives to the problems which exist.

South Africa is becoming more and more air conscious. An examination of the statistics will show that passenger traffic is on a steadily increasing graph. To my mind this is attributable to many facts, the first being the very high standard of our internal service, the second the convenience and the third that there is not all that much difference today between air and rail fares. Furthermore—I think this is the most important fact—the South African public, in line with people all over the world, has lost its nervousness and fear of the virtually unknown which made travelling by air quite a frightening experience in the years immediately after the war. This today is all part and parcel of the ever-increasing awareness of the fact that it is safer to travel by air than it is to travel by car. I would rather travel by air from here to Durban than go through that Dutoitskloof tunnel, thank you very much!

Having said all that, I feel I must bring to the attention of the House the fact that airports and passenger services do not in my opinion measure up to the standards required by this ever-increasing traffic. Let us examine the routine which the air traveller goes through prior to boarding his aircraft. Firstly, he parks his motor-car. He parks it in the parking area and, should he be a businessman, he is happy to leave it there until he returns. I submit, however, that here his troubles start I am one of the many, many unfortunate people who park their motor-cars and who, when they come back on the morrow, cannot remember where his car is parked. I then start to look around for it. I can remember where I parked it when I went away for the Easter weekend, but I cannot remember where I parked it last Friday before going to Durban for the weekend.

Let me confess at the outset—I must state this—that I have a vested interest in the airport parking areas at both Louis Botha in Durban and H. F. Verwoerd in Port Elizabeth. What I am going to say now, however, does not mean that I am in any way taking advantage of that interest because what I am going to suggest will cost the concessionaires, the companies with which I am associated, money. I suggest that each parking bay or each parking line should be numbered. They could be allocated letters A, B, C, D, E and F with bays numbered accordingly.

But then you will forget the number. [Interjections.]

I did not know that hon. member could not write, but I shall do it for him with pleasure when he and I catch the same aircraft.

All one then has to do is to make a note of the parking bay. The department should then erect a simple plan at the exit of each arrival lounge so that the passengers will be able to go home in their motorcars without any difficulty whatsoever.

Once inside the departure lounge, the passenger finds he has to join a queue in order to have his baggage checked and get his seating card. This is another major source of unnecessary annoyance. I believe there are two distinct types of passengers. There is the businessman who has a briefcase and nothing more and then there is the person who has baggage to be checked into the hold of the aircraft. Such a person may be a passenger in transit via Jan Smuts Airport, a person going for a holiday to Durban, or whatever. I submit that there should be a separate queue for the man with the briefcase. For this queue there need not be a scale. If this were done, it would speed up things enormously. I am not, however, suggesting the same number of queues as at present, but an additional one.

Is that for getting one’s seat number?

Yes.

That is then a matter for the Minister of Railways.

The Minister of Railways? Not the Minister of Transport? I should also like to see a separate queue for difficult passengers—I agree that some of them can be difficult. There is no shadow of a doubt that the checking formalities at the departure lounges leave much to be desired. I would therefore urge that a close look be taken at them.

Having checked in, the passenger looks for somewhere to sit and, depending on where he is, he may or may not meet with success. At Jan Smuts Airport he will be successful; at Cape Town he may be a little lucky; but in Durban he has no chance at all. He just will not find a seat at the Louis Botha Airport in Durban. One has only to travel from Louis Botha Airport as often as I do to realize how utterly inadequate the accommodation there is for bona fide passengers. I submit that it is due to an inadequacy of seating and bad planning of the seating that is available. I would be happy to give of my time to go and make a few suggestions to the authorities concerned. One could do away with the tables that are scattered around the departure lounge and provide more seats. There is just not enough seating for people there. I also want to deal again with the departing passenger at Louis Botha Airport. By the judicious use of seating accommodation an embarkation area could be demarcated for passengers so as to make it easier for people to get out of the building in order to board their aircraft.

Now let us deal with the arriving passenger. I noted with a certain amount of amusement and a great measure of self-satisfaction that the gauntlet I spoke of at the D. F. Malan Airport has vanished because two or three doors are now open for people arriving at that airport.

Effective opposition!

That just goes to show that a simple suggestion can improve an irritating situation. I would further urge that at all airports arriving passengers should be encouraged by Airways personnel to use one, two or even three doors when entering the arrival lounge.

It is very difficult to use more than one door at a time.

I would also urge that other airports should follow the excellent example set by the D. F. Malan Airport of installing a messages board immediately inside the door. This is a most useful service which could be provided elsewhere as long as it is situated similarly to the one here in Cape Town.

The arriving passenger still has the problem of having to wait for rather a long time for his baggage. While I do not wish to be critical in this respect—I believe that there are indeed problems involved—I should like to suggest that the situation should be investigated and watched very carefully.

I now wish to turn to catering facilities. Catering facilities at airports leave a lot to be desired. While I am on this topic, I want to say that I am informed that at the H. F. Verwoerd Airport at Port Elizabeth there is still apartheid as far as the catering facilities are concerned.

Let us do away with this. We do not need this any longer in the S.A. Airways.

Finally, having arrived back at Cape Town—if my earlier suggestion is carried out—I can now refer to my diary, check my parking bay number, look at the map which has kindly been provided by the Department of Transport and go straight to my car and drive home a happy and contented S.A. Airways passenger.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just sat down, has so many problems. It seems to me he has more problems than his party has. The queueing at the counter made me think of a supermarket where one goes to one place with a full basket and then to another place with an empty basket.

Last year, after representations made during this debate, the hon. the Minister announced the compulsory use of seat belts. Since that announcement, much has been said, debated and written on this subject. Three provinces, namely Transvaal, the Free State and the Cape Province have already accepted the compulsory use of seat belts with effect from 1 December 1977. Natal however, due to points of law, has not yet made the use of seat belts compulsory. If I have time, I shall come to this point later on.

I think the time has come to look at what has already been accomplished. I think we should look at where we stand now and ask ourselves whether we have had success, what is the rate of use, and also what influence it has had on the pattern of accidents. We should also look into the pattern of conduct on the road which ought to be adopted in future.

If we look at the accident figures, we notice a very interesting pattern. Statistics show that 1974 was the year with the lowest figure for fatal accidents, namely 6 344, and that 56 202 people injured in 213 103 road accidents. But just the following year, 1975, the figure rose again. In that year, 8 124 people died and 85 295 were injured in 260 075 road accidents. However, statistics show that 1977 was the year with the lowest death rate for the past decade. During 1977, accidents decreased by 2% in comparison with the figures for the previous year, i.e., from 269 565 to 264 484. On the country roads, there was a decline of 4%, while in the urban areas the decline was 2%.

The total number of fatalities declined by 20% during 1977. The fatality rate for 1977 again reached a low of 6 420, comparable to the position in 1974. It is an important fact that the seriousness of accidents is constantly declining. The result is that traffic casualties, and especially deaths, are declining to a far greater extent than the accidents themselves. The rate of intensity is very interesting. In 1977 there were 24 deaths for every 1 000 accidents which took place. That compares very favourably with the figure for 1974, when there were 30 deaths for every 1 000 accidents.

There must be reasons for this trend. There are probably several factors which have contributed to this situation. I venture to state that one of the factors which has contributed to this decline, has been the regular use of seat belts. I also believe that the present economic climate and the unavailability of petrol over weekends have also been contributory factors. I also believe that road safety consciousness is increasing among our people and that people have also learned better driving techniques. All that has contributed to give us this low intensity.

In the second place, we must also ascertain what has been the effect of legislation on the rate of the use of seat belts. Two very important studies were undertaken to ascertain the effect of the legislation which came into force on 1 December 1977, on the rate of use of seat belts. An antecedent study was carried out in October/November 1977, and a subsequent study in February/March 1978. In the course of the antecedent study, 11 029 observations were made, and in the course of the subsequent study, 11 412. Statically, these observations are representative for the Republic of South Africa and were carried out on our three types of roads, viz. urban roads, country roads, and freeways.

The results of the observations are briefly as follows: The overall rate of use of seat belts for the Republic was 17,7% during the period of the antecedent study and during the period in which the subsequent study was carried out, the rate of use had risen to 61,1%. Our urban roads, the rate of use had increased by 17% during the period between the antecedent and subsequent studies. On country roads, the rate of use rose from 21,8% to 61,1%, On our freeways, this pattern is also clear, namely an increase from 17,7% to 62,3%. If we leave out Natal, the increase is even more remarkable, because then the overall rate of use of seat belts is 65,4% for the rest of the country. In our urban areas, the rate of use is 64,4%: in the country, 68,5%; and on our freeways, 65,8%.

During the survey’s, motorists were also asked whether they would vote for or against the use of seat belts. The following very interesting data emerged from the questionings: 75,5% were in favour of legislation in this connection, and only 23,1% were against. Another important factor which came to fight during the antecedent study was that 8% of all motor vehicles were not equipped with seat belts and that during the subsequent study, only 4% had not yet been equipped with seat belts. That indicates that the public wants to co-operate in this connection. It is clear from this that publicity alone was not sufficient to raise the rate of use of seat belts. The legislation has therefore had a very positive effect in this connection, namely to raise the rate of use from 17,7% to 61,6%.

The effect of the legislation is proved even more clearly if we take a closer look at the situation in Natal, where the use of seat belts is not compulsory. The rate of use of seat belts in Natal is at its lowest, at 28,7% in urban areas, 31,4% in country areas and only 27% on the freeways.

In my opinion, the time has come to make the use of safety belts compulsory throughout the country. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to obtain the co-operation of our provincial authorities in this connection in order that the regulations may be amended where necessary to obtain a uniform implementation of this measure throughout the country. I therefore want to make an appeal for an intensive propaganda campaign to be launched now to promote the use of seat belts. This must be done with a view to taking action against offenders later on. The time has come when the law should definitely be implemented, because road safety is of very great importance to us in South Africa. We cannot afford the reckless slaughter on our roads. In future, the use of seat belts must be quite natural and a matter of course; it must really be done automatically. In proportion as the wearing of seat belts becomes part of our social pattern of conduct, and in proportion as the next generation grows up with the click of a seat belt in their ears, I foresee that the use of seat belts will be just as natural as the lighting of a cigarette.

If the hon. the Minister agrees to implement the law, I want to plead with the authorities concerned to implement the measures judiciously. In particular, I want to plead with our local authorities not to make of the measure a money-making campaign. They should rather obtain the co-operation of the motorist and he should feel that it is in the interests of himself and his family that he is compelled to use the seat belt. Our people should be helped to become accustomed to the use of seat belts, so that later on it will become second nature with us. There are also other matters in this connection which give rise to concern, such as the question of the use of seat belts in bakkies. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, please permit me, in the restful atmosphere prevailing in this House at this late afternoon hour, to raise a matter as a Pretorian which is of real importance to the metropolitan complex of Pretoria. I want to refer to the whole question of transport facilities from and to Pretoria of the Blacks to the north of Pretoria. I know that when I speak to the hon. the Minister on this matter, I am not speaking to an unconverted person, but indeed to a converted person. I need not convince the hon. the Minister of the case I want to state.

For record purposes, I want to state a few facts. The development of the territory of Bophuthatswana to the north of Pretoria and the development of the Black city of Mabopane, has caused one of the traffic jams of Pretoria. In order to solve this problem, two major traffic arteries will have to be provided. One of these is the railway line from Mabopane to Belle Ombre and the second is the Mabopane link road which is better known as the PWV9 road. I can inform the hon. the Minister that the first traffic artery, i.e. the Mabopane/Belle Ombre railway line, has already been approved by the hon. the Minister in charge of Railways and that the railway line is already under construction. But I must tell the hon. the Minister of Transport this afternoon that I think we should take another look at this second traffic artery.

The problem at issue revolves around the question of the numbers of people, the human masses, to the north of Pretoria and, arising from that, the volume of traffic which builds up. Finally, it also revolves around the topography of Pretoria, because at present, the entire volume of traffic referred to here, as far as the metropolitan area of Pretoria is concerned, can only flow through the Wonderboompoort. All bodies and persons in Pretoria realize the gravity of the situation and for that reason the NP council of Pretoria has already given a great deal of attention to the matter. Over a period of many years we have also had fruitful discussions with the hon. the Minister with regard to this very matter. The city council of Pretoria also regards that as a solution, while the provincial administration has also already accepted in principle that the PWV9 road should be built. On the part of the Railways, too, there is a favourable disposition towards and understanding of this matter.

However, like supplementary transport facilities in other settlement areas, the Mabopane/Belle Ombre railway line scheme has been delayed as a result of cuts in capital expenditure and financial problems. Tentative indications are, however, that it will be possible to establish an electrified dual railway line between Mabopane and Pretoria North towards the end of 1979 and that this limited train service will mean an additional 12 trains per day between Mabopane and Bosman Street station by 1980. The Railways will therefore be able to accommodate an additional 23 000 commuters per day. It will not be possible to introduce this limited train service before 1980, while the scheme as a whole will not be in operation before 1986.

I want to point out to the hon. members that the number of inhabitants in the area to the north of the Magaliesberg has escalated to such an extent that I am of the opinion that while the Railways is busy on this Mabopane railway line, we cannot neglect also attending to the PWV9-Mabopane road. In the Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane, Winterveld and Soshanguve areas alone, the number of inhabitants was as much as 395 000 by 1975, and 438 000 by 1977; and according to estimates, the figure will be 615 000 in 1980. I can supply many more figures to indicate the extent of the development to the north of the city, and the industrial development that is taking place there. We must also keep in mind that apart from these Black people, there are also approximately 30 000 Whites resident in the Pretoria complex to the north of the Magaliesberg. They all have to make use of the Wonderboompoort. These figures illustrate the gravity of this situation.

The only link between Mabopane and Pretoria is the Soutpan road via the Wonderboompoort. That is the reason why this road, which has already been planned, has become so important. Unfortunately the provincial administration, which was already engaged in the execution of this contract—it was prepared in two phases—stopped the work as a result of the financial situation in the country. Contract No. 1 would have been started in January 1976, and completed towards August 1979 at a cost of R7,8 million. Contract No. 2 was also intended to have been completed by August 1979 at a cost of R10,3 million. In other words, the total cost of this road would have been R18,l million.

At present, 18 800 Black people are being transported by train to Pretoria from Ga-Rankuwa and Hammanskraal alone. Between approximately 50 000 and 55 000 commuters are transported from that area to Pretoria by bus every day. Bantu buses undertake approximately 2 000 trips daily through the Wonderboompoort to convey these commuters.

As far back as 1975 it was calculated that after the peak period, i.e. 1975 after 08h00 and throughout the rest of the day, an average of 600 Black people per hour enter the city through the Wonderboompoort. If one takes all these figures into account and one calculates on the basis of five persons per private motor vehicle, it means a minimum volume of 125 motor vehicles per hour. That was calculated on figures for 1975. I have already indicated the escalation figures for the areas during the years 1977 to 1980. What, then, will the position be in 1985 or in 1986, when the Mabopane railway line is eventually completed?

I therefore plead that the PWV9 road should be regarded as part of the Mabopane master plan. I ask the hon. the Minister to request the National Transport Commission to look into this matter again as a matter of urgency. They must consider whether they cannot advance the funds in the meantime so that a start can also be made on the PWV9. We must do the one thing, i.e. the railway line, and we are already busy with that, and we are grateful to the hon. the Minister but we must not neglect the other. All I ask is that the National Transport Commission should look into this again. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the matter which has been raised by the hon. member for Koedoespoort, is obviously something to which the hon. the Minister must respond. However, I commend the hon. member for raising the difficulties to which the African population at Mabopane, in the Pretoria area, are subjected. With regard to the plea made by the hon. member for Kempton Park, I would like to say, briefly, that it is true—I think we all accept it—that road safety has been improved because of the compulsory wearing of safety belts. Enforcement should always be preceded by education, and I do therefore do not support the idea that enforcement should take place immediately. If anything, I think at least three months notice should be given to the public before the compulsory wearing of safety belts is enforced.

There are two amounts under this Vote to which I wish to refer. The first is the R2 million in so far as weather forecasting is concerned. In this connection let me immediately pay tribute to the men and women of South Africa who endure many hardships to provide us with our weather forecasts. This applies particularly when one thinks of places such as Marion Island and other such places from where we are supplied with out advance weather forecasts.

Secondly, I should like to compliment the SABC-TV on their new method of weather forecasting. It gives a far better explanation of the weather. But I cannot compliment the SABC in so far as its weather report is concerned. I am a little dumbfounded and a little hurt at these news reports concerning the weather. It may be interesting to a lot of people to hear that it is raining in Moscow, that it is snowing in Paris, that it is warm in Chicago and that the weather in Tokyo is fine, but when it comes to the weather report for South Africa we hear the regional report for the Cape Peninsula, a report for the Transvaal and the Orange Free State and a report for the south-coast regions, but I want to hear, and I believe the public want to hear, what the weather is going to be in Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth or East London. I must ask the hon. the Minister to give consideration to these weather reports so that we can know what the weather is going to be in our own towns and cities of South Africa.

The second item to which I wish to refer is the R2 064 000 which is to go to the Urban Transport Fund. In this regard I think we all agree that communication is the most vital factor for stability and progress in South Africa. While urban local authorities have a primary function to provide this, but the provincial administrations as well as the Government have the overall responsibility to provide the funds. The provincial administrations are dependent upon us for their funds and the local authorities are known for their lack of funds. The Borckenhagen Commission sat for something like 14 years and presented reports which did not assist local authorities. Arising out of one of these reports, the seven major local authorities of South Africa went to the Minister of Finance, who then appointed Mr. Driessen to go into the question of transportation. By March 1972 there was a report. Although Mr. Driessen was given only six months to report, he took nearly 18 months. When that report came out, a White Paper was issued by the Government on the new demands being made on local authorities regarding the planning and financing of modern urban and metropolitan road networks in order to provide, inter alia, efficient systems. It noted the urgency of the problems, because the results of transport studies conducted in cities showed exceptionally low speeds. It also showed extreme losses, losses like R11 million with regard to the bus transportation systems of the various local authorities.

The White Paper then dealt with various recommendations, and in paragraph 8 refers to general long-term measures which can be implemented without delay. I want to emphasize the words “without delay”. Some of these measures, like recommendation No. 1.3.1, at a glance refer to 25% of the cost of capital equipment and 30% of the cost of the land. Another recommendation accepted by the White Paper was that local authorities should be eligible for grants of 30% on the construction and expropriation costs of expressways. Another recommendation was a 20% subsidy on current revenue to be paid on public urban bus transport. A further recommendation, No. 1.4.7, states that grants may be made by the National Transport Commission at a rate of 25% of capital expenditure.

In the final recommendations we find that the Driessen Commission in fact recommended that R92 million a year should be set aside. The White Paper accepted not R92 million, but R52 million. Of the R72 million recommended as subsidies on roads and related works this Government, in the White Paper, made provision for R36 million. The R7 million for subsidies on bus transport was accepted in toto. Instead of the R6,5 million recommended for subsidies on capital expenditure on buses, an amount of R3 million was accepted. The R5 million for Railway transport was accepted. Of the recommended R1 million for subsidies on traffic control R500 000 was accepted. The recommended R500 000 for administrative costs was accepted. That is what was done.

Now, what happened as a result of that? As a result of that a Bill was passed. It was first published and comments were invited. Symposiums and congresses were held. Two national congresses took place in Cape Town, and two in Pretoria. Vast amounts of money were spent on these. Many people attended. What happened? We have the estimates before us. However, what do we find now? We find that only R2 million has been allocated to urban Transport planning. A miserable R2 million has been set aside to supply the seven major local authorities of South Africa with proper urban planning and transportation. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is serious. Does he think this is a joke? With great respect, this is an insult to all the commissions, to all who gave evidence and to all the planning that has gone into this.

Let us just briefly look at the Act. Act No. 78 of 1977 was passed on 7 June 1977. In terms of section 8 of that Act funds are to be set aside by Parliament for the Urban Transport Fund. This amount of R2 million is the first amount that is to go into it. That is R2 million out of R64 million. The commissioners have to submit their estimates of expenditure annually to the hon. the Minister for his approval. I want to know from the hon. the Minister what estimates they did submit and how much they did appropriate.

Section 9 of the Act says that the hon. the Minister can, from time to time, grant to all local authorities moneys from Parliament to the commission. How much money has been granted to the commission? Section 18 of the Act provides for the establishment of a Consolidated Metropolitan Transport Fund. In terms of subsection 1(b) of that section, funds are to be paid into the Fund by the Administrators, and in terms of subsection 1(c), by the commission. How much money has been received from both?

Section 25(2) of the Act says that regulations are to be passed. I want to ask the hon. the Minister what regulations have been passed since 7 June 1977. I want to submit to the hon. the Minister that, as we stand here today, no regulations have been passed at all in terms of this Act. In the circumstances, I want to submit that the hon. the Minister is neglecting his duty. He has failed the commission. He has failed local authorities. He has failed the public of South Africa.

Johannesburg is receiving some R300 000. All they can do is a little bit of planning. There are no teeth to this. There is no money. With great respect, the whole thing is a farce. Where is the priority? We have spoken today about this expenditure of R56 million for the Du Toits Kloof tunnel, and the hon. the Minister has made out a case saying we are going to save R68 million over a period of 10 years.

The hon. the Minister is guided by experts, and he has advanced the argument, in the face of what the hon. member for Orange Grove said, namely that it could be spent on housing, that it must be spent on motorists because it affects motorists and roads. Now, here is the hon. the Minister’s opportunity. This affects motorists. This affects roads. It affects transportation in South Africa as a whole. We could not have a better excuse than to spend it as a subsidy to the seven major local authorities of South Africa.

When it comes to experts, the hon. the Minister says we should not listen to the little old ladies who write to newspapers, but that we should rather listen to his experts. But, with respect, what about the experts mentioned on page 59 of the Driessen Commission’s report? I refer to the experts from transport and road user organizations, the experts on commerce and industry, the professional organizations and persons, the local authorities and Central Government organizations, such as the Department of Bantu Administration and the South African Railways. What about all these experts? Are they no longer experts? How can the hon. the Minister get up in this House and argue that in the determination of the priorities when it comes to the spending of this amount of R56 million, four kilometres of tunnel should take precedence over the requirements of the seven major local authorities in the field of road transportation and road planning in South Africa? These seven major local authorities must, I believe, take at least 52% of the traffic. I challenge the hon. the Minister to consult the experts. Let the experts who told the hon. the Minister that he will save R0,5 million per year with that tunnel, assess the saving if adequate funds are provided to local authorities in order to enable them to provide proper transportation services for all vehicles in South Africa. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting that hon. members on the opposite side of the House keep on questioning the priorities selected by the hon. the Minister and the department. One thing is very clear to me, and it is that if the Du Toit’s Kloof tunnel had been situated in Hillbrow or in Amanzimtoti, no fault would have been found with it [Interjections.] Each one of us in this House will have to learn that priorities are determined with a view to the country as a whole, and not merely with a view to specific constituencies.

The hon. member for Hillbrow complained very vehemently about the quality of our weather forecasting services in South Africa. The standard of weather forecasts in South Africa may be compared with those in any other country in the world. South Africa is an appreciated contributor to the International Meteorological Society. In fact, the knowledge acquired in South Africa, inter alia, owing to our association with Marion Island and Sana base, is of inestimable value to the world. The hon. member has just spoken disparagingly of weather forecasts, and said that they were not as correct as he would have liked them to be. I do not think there can be any difference of opinion when it is stated that the weather is still frequently unpredictable. As recently as 1974 wise men, who have made thorough-going studies of this matter, emphasized the unpredictability of the weather and weather modification. I am referring, inter alia, to the book Weather Modification in the Public Interest, written by Fleagle, Crutchfield, Johnson and Abdo. In a chapter dealing with “Existing mechanisms for decision-making”, they quote Montaigne as follows—

In a subsequent chapter Robert Bridges is quoted on the subject matter of “Management Alternatives”, as follows …

We must accept that in this field as well we are still, to a very large extent, dealing with the unknown. I think that we in South Africa already concede that there is still much uncertainty about weather forecasting and weather modification. But I do not think that we need in any way be ashamed in this connection, for throughout the world there are still many unanswered questions in the sphere of weather modification.

I have the privilege of associating very closely with persons dealing with research into weather modification, and in my own mind I have the reassurance that the standard of research which is being done in South Africa is among the highest one could hope to find. Secondly, I am reassured in my mind by the realization of the integrity of the researchers and also of the department in their endeavour to acquire knowledge in that unknown sphere.

In my constituency, too, there are some levels in respect of which uncertainty exists. In this book to which I referred, the following is also said—

Although we in South Africa are generally not subjected to winds of hurricane strength, we nevertheless find ourselves in a geographical area in which rapidly fluctuating climatic conditions occur. Yet these are definitely not as changeable as the St. Louis, Boston and Seattle areas in the USA are described to be. Apparently they say in those places: “If you do not like our weather, just wait a few minutes.” But we do experience practical problems.

It has become the practice in the Eastern Free State for certain organizations to ensure meetings against rain. I take an agricultural society as an example. Policies exist which such a society can take out with a view to cover against the loss in gate-money, and so on if between 5 and 10 mm of rain should fall on a specific day and within a specific period during that day. This is no new principle which is being followed; in fact, it has been followed over the years. But now we find that the insurance companies write into their agreements that those agreements will not be valid if any form of weather modification occurs within 40 km of the point at which the policy is applicable.

I think it would be a good thing if the department were to consider once again the modus operandi of the research team in Bethlehem in such a case. We know that in many cases, the research team does reconnaissance work in the air, but when an aircraft with which the team is associated is spotted in the air, it is generally accepted by the public that they are seeding clouds. I should like the department to consider the problems which may arise from this. If the insurance companies continue in this way, we could subsequently experience problems with crop insurance. It is a general practice in the Eastern Free State to ensure the crops.

There is a second aspect of which I myself am a little uncertain, and my people also feel uneasy about this. Foreign researchers are to a large extent being used at the project in Bethlehem. I think that the research team consists of 34 persons, of whom 14 are graduates. I think that of the 14 graduates, only three are South Africans. I do not want to speak disparagingly of these researchers from abroad, but the danger exists that they may leave South Africa after their contract expires. Of course they can also decide not to continue with their work. I request that the possibility be investigated of forcing students who are studying weather and climatology, and particularly those that are making use of bursaries or loans, to join the research team for a certain period—say for two years.

The third aspect to which I should like the department to give its attention is the form of weather modification which is already taking place in one of our neighbouring homelands, i.e. Qwaqwa. An attempt is being made to create artificial snow for skiing purposes. We have no objection to the process which is being used in order to create artificial snow. Huge sprayers are being used which spray water droplets of a specific size, and when the temperature reaches a predetermined degree, snow is formed. What we do feel a little uneasy about are the side-effects. I want to ask the department to keep a careful watch on the possible formation of wind currents, particularly if one takes into consideration the fact that the reflection from a white or snow-covered surface differs from that of an ordinary mountain surface.

There is something else to which I have to refer, for I shall feel guilty if I do not get round to this. I am venturing into a completely different sphere now, that of oil pollution to which the hon. member for Welkom also referred. I do not want to advance a plea today for the holiday-maker, the industrialist or the local authority, but for the silent victims of oil pollution: Our flora and fauna along our coast, and particularly our marine life. The off-shore collision between the Venpet and the Venoil opposite the National Tsitsikama Coastal Park, gave us a timely warning, for if the elements had not co-operated and the department had not taken rapid action—we are grateful to the hon. the Minister and the Secretary for the personal attention they gave to this matter—the pollution along the Tsitsikama coastline could have been far worse. In the end there was only a small degree of pollution, but it must be added that at this stage we still do not know what effects this can have. It may be that in five or ten years time we will find fishes there with bulging eyes, or with cancerous growths, particularly on the fins.

This is an area in which research is being done, but if that research is impeded by the pollution, it will mean that 13 years of research of world standard will have been destroyed by a single oil slick. One would advocate preparedness, particularly in respect of the Tsitsikama coastal area. I know it is not practicable to have ships sail further out to sea when they ply up that coast, but I do want to ask whether it was not possible, even if it does incur expenses, to station a ship at Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth or at the Tsitsikama coastal park, which will be on stand by if any threat of oil pollution should arise. We gladly advance pleas for those wonderful, interesting and, one would almost say, noble animals who give us so much pleasure, and who cannot state their own case and for which we have to accept responsibility.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bethlehem put certain matters to the hon. the Minister and I am sure that the hon. the Minister will give him a reply in due course. I do not think it is out of place for us to refer at this stage of the debate to an activity of the department which is not so generally known and which, for the very reason that it is not generally known, is not properly appreciated either. Here I am referring to the administrative and logistic support which the department gives to scientific research done on the Antarctic continent and at the Sanae base there, as well as to the logistic support which the department gives to meteorological observations on Marion, Gough and Prince Edward Islands.

I could keep the Committee busy for a long time by referring to the historical mystique which surrounds the Antarctic continent like an icy white veil. I could refer to the successes and failures of expeditions, to the heights and depths of these Antarctic voyages of discovery, all of which contributed to the creation of a permanent base so that Antarctic scientific research and meteorological observations can be made daily.

The Department of Transport’s connection with Antarctica goes back to the year 1957–’58. That year is known in scientific and meteorological circles as the International Geophysical Year. During that year, expeditions were sent to the South Pole islands under the leadership of Sir Vivian Fuchs. Mr. Hannes le Grange was the first South African who set foot in Antarctica. Not only were expeditions launched during the International Geophysical Year, but—and this is more important—12 countries also convened to draw up an Antarctic Treaty. I want to refer to a few points of the six point treaty, not in order to refer specifically to what is contained in the treaty, but to take cognizance of what the treaty does not stipulate. The treaty stipulates inter alia, that the geography of Antarctica must be guaranteed for peaceful purposes only. It also stipulates the non-militarization of the entire Antarctic continent. In addition all nuclear tests are prohibited on the continent and the treaty confirms the continued scientific co-operation between the signatories and the mutual exchange of information. The uniqueness of this contract lies in the fact that it is workable proof of the fact that no matter how countries may differ in the ideological and political sphere, they can nevertheless find a way of co-operating to the advantage of mankind. This is not described in the treaty, but is accepted as the spirit of the treaty. As I said, it is workable proof that countries can in fact co-operate.

The Department of Transport is responsible for financial support for natural science research, and the department co-operates with the CSIR in this regard. However, in order to understand the work of the department in this regard properly, we must take a look at the background—the geography—against which the department is asked to grant administrative aid.

Antarctica is the world’s seventh continent. 95% of its surface is covered by a layer of ice. In some parts the ice is up to 2 000 metres deep. The average annual temperature is minus 17 degrees Celsius. It is under these circumstances that the department gives annual assistance in scientific studies. Six universities are also doing research, research which covers various fields. It is a fact that the research which is being done on Antarctica, with the assistance of the Department of Transport, enjoys world-wide recognition. It offers South Africa the opportunity to participate in international scientific forums. The contributions of South Africa’s scientific studies in Antarctica are even recognized behind the iron curtain.

Now I come to meteorological research. Meteorological observations are made on Marion, Gough and Prince Edward Islands. Prince Edward and Marion have been in the possession of South Africa since 1948, and it is interesting to take note of the Department of Transport’s ability to negotiate conditions of contract. I am referring specifically here to the contract in terms of which Gough Island is leased from the United Kingdom for one peppercorn per annum. This is the annual rental. It should be noted that the area between South Africa and the Antarctic Islands is considered to be the weather factory of the world. Meteorological observations are made daily at three-hourly intervals at the three observation stations, and these observations are transmitted to South Africa and Australia by international code and from there they find their way to the synoptic maps of the world. That is why it is not unusual for meteorological observations which are made on Marion Island, Gough Island and Sanae to be recorded in Moscow two hours after having been registered. This is a feather in the cap for the department’s continued support of the meteorologists on Marion, Gough and Prince Edward Islands, and at the Sanae base.

Finally, I want to refer to the exploitation of the living marine resources which have gripped the imagination of scientists. We are living in a period in which known natural resources are being exhausted, and in view of the expectation that the world population will double within 25 years, a new food source is being sought. Scientists are bent on investigating a protein plankton which may offer a solution to the food shortage of the world. I am referring specifically to krill. When this specific plankton is contrasted with the world’s total annual fish catch, we find the following: The total fish catch of the world amounts to 70 million tons. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, since we have now come to the end of the discussion on this Vote, you will allow me to refer in a single sentence to another matter. I am thinking in this regard of the replacement of the research supply ship, the RSA, which it has been my privilege to advocate regularly since 1968. This year we were privileged to commission the new S.A. Agulhas. It is a beautiful ship, with excellent facilities for the crew and the researchers. We cannot allow this opportunity to pass without our congratulating the department most sincerely on this new addition to their assets. On 5 April the S.A. Agulhas left on her maiden voyage to Marion Island with the 35th relief team on board. On board with them was a maintenance staff from the Department of Public Works as well as other observers and researchers. I want to avail myself of this opportunity to wish her and her crew everything of the best on this and other journeys in future. I also want to express our sincere gratitude to the hon. the Minister and to the Secretary for Transport for having made it possible for hon. members interested in transport, to gather sociably at the reception of the ship in Table Bay Harbour and to see something of the ship. We say thank you very much for that courtesy towards the Parliamentarians.

Mr. Chairman, in the time we still have at our disposal today, I should like to discuss a few matters rather than to reply specifically to matters raised by hon. members although the subjects I want to discuss have obviously been raised in the course of the discussions. Before proceeding to do that, I should like to express my appreciation for the interesting discussions we have had on this Vote. The Transport Vote is a practical matter and something which affects all of us. In the cities it affects us by means of our streets, in the country by means of our roads, and apart from the Weather Bureau and many other aspects connected therewith, it covers the airports, etc. That is why this Vote is in my opinion, one that all of us can discuss.

The first subject I should like to discuss, is a very interesting one, i.e. the Weather Bureau and the work being done at the Bureau. The work done by the Weather Bureau is very valuable to us. I requested the department to send me the previous day’s satellite photograph every day. Now it happens as regularly as clockwork that when I get to office in the morning, I am given the satellite photograph of the previous day. It is a photograph taken at six o’clock in the morning from the southern hemisphere and on which Southern Africa as a whole is shown. Unfortunately hon. members are unable to see what is depicted on the photograph from where they are seated, but as I have a few of these photographs I am quite prepared to make them available to those members who would like to look at them. The whole of Southern Africa approximately from the equator southwards, including Madagascar, appears on the photograph. The various cloud masses also appear on the photograph. According to the cloud masses and the indications given by them, the meteorologists determine weather indications and from those we get our forecasts. I do not profess to be a meteorologist but it is true that our weather movements are from west to east. In other words, if we want to see what is going to happen in the future with regard to the weather in South Africa, we have to look to the west. The photograph I have in front of me, was taken yesterday morning. I remember clearly that it was indicated last night in the weather report on television, that there was going to be a low pressure system in the vicinity of Beaufort West in the central Karroo today. On this map which was drawn on the basis of the photograph, one can see clearly where the low pressure system occurred yesterday. Yesterday morning, when the photograph was taken, this low pressure system was situated over Bushmanland. The meteorologists describe this low pressure system as follows—

It is very interesting to receive these photographs and other data every day. Obviously One learns to understand these aerial photographs better and to read the accompanying charts better from day to day.

These valuable photographs are available to us because there are satellites orbiting the earth. These satellites were launched by various countries, and they take photographs at different times—some satellites take a photo every half an hour, but that is not so in all cases—and the photographs are sent to South Africa. With reference to these satellites, and for the information of those hon. members who dealt with the Weather Bureau, I should like to read a few extracts from an information document in connection with weather satellites which the Weather Bureau made available to me recently—

That is in Pretoria—

This process has been in operation since 1966 and has, of course, been improved all along. I now quote a short paragraph in which these improvements are indicated—

Those are the numbers of the satellites. Then reference is made to South Africa—

Another very interesting development is the geostationary satellite. I quote further—

Attached to this information document is a beautiful photograph taken by this satellite on 30 January 1978. The whole of Africa, the Middle East, part of Europe—which, unfortunately, is under a cover of clouds—the entire south pole, under snow, and the eastern part of South America appear very clearly on this photograph. I quote further—

That is what our meteorologists say—

Here I am referring to the European Space Organization. I am furnishing this information because I think it will be of value and interest to hon. members. I should like to agree with the hon. member for Hillbrow that the way in which our weather forecasts are presented on television at present, is a big improvement. I do think, however, that the presentation can be improved even more, because we have the facilities, knowledge and weather forecasts at our disposal. To my mind a further improvement is to be effected in their presentation.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

The House adjourned at 6.00 p.m.