Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698925718505.pdf (South Africa)
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 1 WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 ____ PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ____ The House met at 15:01.

The House Chairperson (Ms M G Boroto) took the Chair and requested members to observe a moment of silence for prayer or meditation.
WELCOMING OF NEW MEMBERS The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Hon members, before we proceed with today’s business, I wish to announce that the vacancies which occurred in the NA owing to the resignation of Mr G G Hill-Lewis and Mr J Selfe have been filled with effect from the 25 April 2022, by the nominations of Mr C M Fry and Mr F Essack.

You are welcome members.

[Applause.]

The members have made and subscribed to the oath and affirmation in the Deputy Speaker’s Office.
I welcome you all, hon members.

ANNOUNCEMENTS UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 2 The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): In the interest of safety, let us wear our masks and sit on the designated areas.

Just a reminder because you have been home.

The rules still apply that we must wear our masks at all times.

Hon members, please note that the Motion on the Appointment to the Secretary of Parliament will by agreement stand over.
Having said that, we now proceed to the Second Motion on the Order Paper which is on the name of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party.

MOTION OF CONDOLENCES (Mr Mxolisi Simon Sokatsha) The CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: The family is just entering the House now.

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Ms M G Boroto): Will you allow them to sit before you proceed, hon Chief Whip?

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: That will be very progressive hon Chair.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 3 The CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Hon House Chair Mama Boroto, to members of the House physically and in virtually, I wish you a happy Africa Day.

IsiXhosa: UMBHEXESHI OYINTLOKO WEQELA ELILAWULAYO: Sihlalo weNdlu, ndima kule ndawo ndinyembezana, ndingaqali ke phofu.

English: This is my 18th member that I move a Motion of Condolences.

From 2020 to 2022, hon Sokatsha is my 18th person from the ANC Caucus.
Hon House Chairperson, I move: That the House – (1) notes with great shock and sadness the tragic and untimely passing of the ANC Member of Parliament, Mr Mxolisi Simon Sokatsha in a fatal car accident on Friday,25 March 2022; IsiXhosa: UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 4 Yanduluka ngophanyazo inzwane yakwaGcina, ebhuzubhuzu, imbishimbishi yooXhamela.

Kufandini, akufi.
English: (2) remembers that 57-year-old Mr Sokatsha joined the NA after 2019 General Elections and was deployed to serve in the Portfolio Committee on Health; (3) further remembers that he is a trained educator and an accountant who previously served in the Northern Cape Legislature from 2003 to 2019, 16 years of unbroken service and I served with him in the MinMec in various capacities including as MEC for Health, Social Development, Sports, Arts and Culture, as well as Roads and Public Works; (4) recalls that during the 1980s, Sokatsha was involved in the establishment of the Midlands and Karoo Youth Congress, the affiliates of SA Youth Congress, Sayco; IsiXhosa: Oovuk’ayibambe.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 5 English: The young lions.

(5) further recalls that he served as the Chairperson of the ANC’s Pixley ka Seme region from 1997 to 1999; (6) acknowledges that Sokatsha served as the first post-apartheid mayor of Richmond between 1994 and 1996; IsiXhosa: Ukusweleka kwakhe kwalila umzi, akwatyiwa ngokushiywa nguTata uSokatsha, watsho umzi waseRichmond.
English: (7) further acknowledges that at the time of his passing, he was a Provincial Executive Committee, PEC member of the ANC in the Northern Cape; (8) believes that Parliament lost a very principled member, hardworking and dedicated to his work, a socialite of note, and a dancer; and UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 6 (9) extends its sincerest condolences to the family ... IsiXhosa: ... uMama uNomvuyo okhoyo phaya, abantwana uNoluvuyo, Andiswa, Zikhona, Milisa ... English: ... the real Mr Sokatsha, the Junior there ... IsiXhosa: ... wanga umphefumlo wakhe ungalala ngoxolo.
Siyabulela kuni MaGcina, booTyhopho nakuwe MaMthembu ngokusiboleka unyana kuni, umyeni kuni kunye notata kubantwana bakhe.

Wanga umphefumlo wakhe ungasikeleleka, ulale ngoxolo.

Umfundisi undulukile kuba uBawo uye wambiza.

English: I thank you.

Mrs E R WILSON: House Chairperson, the loss of a loved one is very hard, but the sudden unexpected loss of a loved one is particularly difficult.

We can only imagine the Sokatsha family’s pain.

The hon Sokatsha was born in Richmond in January 1965.
Regular travellers of the N1 to Cape Town may UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 7 well have known or heard about Richmond.

It is a small town between Colesberg and Beaufort West.

And apart from the garage on the side of the road, the town is easily missed.

A couple of years ago on route from Cape town to my home province Limpopo, my car broke down not far from Richmond.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was distraught knowing that businesses, garages, and anything else in the area was likely to be closed for the weekend.

I managed to get to Richmond and indeed apart from the garage where there was only one person to pour fuel, most of the businesses in the area were closed, bar one.

With little help from the garage, I walked to the only open business and found a young man called Dean.
When I explained my dilemma to him, he jumped into action and within no time at all, several people from the town had gathered to assist me.

They drove me back to my car 22 kilometres away from Richmond, assessed the situation, and then drove back to Richmond.

They managed to find the parts for the car needed.


And with expertise got me back on the road Dean and his lovely team who had taken my numbers sent me messages and queries the whole way back to Limpopo until they were sure I had arrived there safely.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 8 And what has this got to do with the hon Sokatsha you ask?
Well, the hon Sokatsha and I had three passions in common, both from rural communities, the small and often forgotten small towns were close to both of our hearts.

I discovered a small remote town, full of wonderful Christian folk who were prepared to do whatever possible to ensure that I was safe and well seen to.

When I was distraught, they told me that it was merely the devil's work and that our David would overcome the Goliath, and together with prayer and faith, we did.
The hon Sokatsha was proud of his roots and justifiably so.

He was the first post-apartheid mayor of Richmond from 1994 to 1996.

And was a student of theology and a teacher.

He worked tirelessly for the upliftment of rural towns and the people there.

We shared the same faith and concerns about the plight of the poor and vulnerable in these remote areas.

This is obvious in Richmond, where he was very influential.
I worked with the hon Sokatsha for five years in the Portfolio Committee on Health, and his commitment to highlighting the plight of the struggling health system in the Northern Cape was very apparent.

He served as an accountant, Chief Whip and in various portfolios as a MEC in the Northern Cape legislature from 2003 to 2019, before coming to the National Assembly.
He has a long record in senior UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 9 positions in politics, despite how ideological differences, the hon Sokatsha never shied away from a debate or a civil and mature discussion and was willing to listen to other perspectives.

We had some interesting discussions, both about politics and our different backgrounds, where we often found common ground.
He and I shared a passion for food and he would often entertain with stories about his favourite foods, his love for his wife's cooking and indigenous foods and herbs.

Mrs Sokatsha.

Mrs Sokatsha, he often told me that no one would ever be able to cook as well as you do.

You knew his diet well.

He shared stories of his children and their successes and was a very proud and loving father too.

Mrs Sokatsha and your children, he loved you greatly.
Please accept our sincerest condolences on your tragic loss.

To his colleagues and friends in the ANC, our thoughts and prayers are with you all.

May his soul rest in eternal peace.

I thank you.

[Applause.]


Ms N N CHIRWA: Chairperson, greetings to the commander in chief of the EFF Julius Sello Malema, and all the officials, commissars, fighters and ground forces of the EFF, today as the EFF, we stand in solidarity to mark the life of the now UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 10 late hon Mxolisi Simon Sokatsha, who sadly and untimely left the mundane world to join other fallen heroes.
The EFF sends heartfelt condolences to his wife, his children, extended family, friends, comrades, and the ANC on their loss.

As Africans, the empathy for the loss of life supersedes various forms of solidarity.

We are one when a child is born and we are one when one of us departs this earth.

This moment is no different.

We are one with his family and his loved ones in grieving and noting his life.

Although prematurely ended, it was well-lived and to the fullest.
Hon Mxolisi Sokatsha amongst the many of the roles he played, serving as the MEC of Health in the Northern Cape.

And most recently, as a member of the Portfolio Committee on Health.

He was one of a few genuine cadres who was committed to the work of the portfolio committee we have served together in since 2019.
In moments of heated conflict and disagreement, he would attempt in his peculiar way to simmer down the flames, and when in the wrong, and even when he was right, he had the humility to not only withdraw his sentiments but to apologize profusely during the meeting and even privately.

He understood the sentiment that ... IsiZulu: UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 11 ... kuhlonishwa kabili.
English: In his quest to display loyalty and allegiance to his political party, he did not forget humanness and sincerity in interpersonal interactions.

We were blessed enough to share the journey of rounding up public hearings for the National Health Insurance, NHI, across the country in 2019.
He would be the earliest to board in the morning and through his charismatic nature, he would be the last to get inside in the transport on our way back because he would interact with everyone no matter their social class and or background and political party t-shirt that they wore.
He had the charisma and ability to round all of us up at the dinner table after the public hearings and share hilarious recollections of his history, his family, and his children, whom he loved and never forgot to mention whenever he was in high spirits.

My deepest condolences are thus directed to his wife and his children.

Know that he loved and cherished all of you.

He carried you with him everywhere he went.


And he found great joy in sharing how much he appreciated the warmth and the support he received from his family.

The country will forever be appreciative of your borrowing of your father and your UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 12 husband to the country.

To the nation at large, you have lost a leader in his own right.

IsiZulu: Duduzekani.

Alwehlanga olungehliyo.


English: May his soul rest in perfect and eternal peace until we meet again.

Thank you very much, Chairperson.

IsiZulu: Nk M D HLENGWA: Angithokoze, Mhlali ngaphambili, sikhala sonke.

Izinyembezi zethu ziyagobhoza zidlula ngisho izindlebe ngale nsizwa yomhlabathi waseNingizimu Afrika.

Ubaba u- Sokatsha bekungubaba, bekungumfundisi, bekunguthisha, ngakhoke sikhalela isizwe ngakho konke lokhu njenge-IFP.
Simbonile uBaba u-Sokatsha ekwenza konke kodwa Mama u-Sokatsha okuhle ngoNkulunkulu ukuthi akakwenzi okungaphezu kwamandla.

Sonke sasikhathazekile nge-COVID-19.

Sonke sasikhathazekile ngoshukela kaBaba u-Sokatsha kodwa uNkulunkulu wenza ngeyakhe indlela futhi nangesakhe isikhathi.

Ngakhoke duduzeka.

Ngiduduza nomama eKwaZulu-Natal le ngakithi ngithi mama duduzeka.
Indodana yakho ibihlala ikhuluma njalo ngomama ithi UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 13 ngizoshayela ngiyeKwaZulu-Natal ngiyobona umama ngithokoze ngincokole nomama.

Ube umuntu wamancoko.

Uma esengena emsebenzeni futhi ubengena emsebenzini.

Bekungubaba obezihlonipha.

English: It is with the deepest sadness that the IFP ultimately heard about the death of Mxolisi Sokatsha.
I wish to extend on behalf of His Excellency the Prince of KwaPhindangene, the president emeritus of the IFP and our caucus leader in Parliament, our deepest condolences to the family and friends and the hon Mxolisi Sokatsha’s wife, as well as his colleagues in the ANC.

Hon Sokatsha, at the time of death, served as a member of the Portfolio Committee on Health.

We will always remember him as a kind, warm-hearted person who contributed deeply to the portfolio committee deliberations.
He carried out his oversight duties with diligence and passion and will be greatly missed by all the members of the portfolio committee.

To the portfolio committee ... IsiZulu: UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 14 ... ngithi bantakwethu, alwehlanga olungehli kwikomidi elibheke umsebenzi womnyango ngiyanikhalela nani.

Bekuwulimu lakhe u-Sokatsha athi, “mntakwethu”.


English: We also wish to extend our deepest and sincerest sympathy to his former colleagues in the Northern Cape provincial government where the hon Sokatsha served before becoming a Member of Parliament.

We wish to honour his commitment to the fight for democracy in his early student days serving in SA Students Congress and his lifelong contribution as a public servant.

IsiZulu: Ubaba u-Sokatsha ubeyindoda impela.

Ubengawukhohliwe nomneni wakhe.


Engalikhohliwe nezwe.

Siyamkhalela noMongameli.

English: May the passing of Mr Sokatsha remind all of us of the duty we have towards the people of South Africa.

To continue striving and working towards a better future for all those who live in this country.

IsiZulu: UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 15 Mama u-Sokatsha, kuneculo elithi, Ayibalwa Iminyaka, ngifisa kube yiculo lakho lelo, usho nawe ukuthi, ayibalwa iminyaka.
Ungomunye womama owuthokozele umshado.

Yingakho ngithi, ayibalwa iminyaka.

Uyadinga ukumnika uNkulunkulu udumo sekwenzekile konke lokhu.

English: May his soul rest in peace.

I thank you.

Afrikaans: Mnr P A VAN STADEN: Voorsitter, ek het die voorreg gehad om saam met mnr Sokatsha sedert ons inswering as lede van die Parlement in 2019 tot en met sy afsterwe vroeër vanjaar op die Portefeuljekomitee oor Gesondheid te dien.
Hy was ’n man met ’n ryke aktivistiese en politieke geskiedenis, ’n man wat verkies was as burgemeester van die dorp, Richmond, in 1994, daarna verkies as lid van die Noord-Kaapse provinsiale wetgewer vanaf 2003 tot 2019, waar hy gedien het as LUR van Gesondhied, Maatskaplike Ontwikkeling, Sport, Kuns en Kultuur, en ook as LUR vir Paaie en Openbare Werke.

Sedert ons mekaar hier in die Parlement ontmoet het, het ons ’n baie goeie band met mekaar gehad.
Dit moes die Afrikaanse taal wees, wat ons saamgebind het, maar nie net die taal nie, UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 16 maar ook omrede ons soortgelyke ooreenkomste in ons onderskeie loopbane gehad het - eerstens as aktiviste en later as politici.
Toe ons, as komitee, op oorsigbesoeke was of toe ons met die Nasionale Gesondheidsversekering deur die land gereis het en lang ure op die pad spandeer het, het die langpad besonders vinnig kort geraak met ’n man wat die beste stories kon vertel en almal kon laat skater van die lag.

Ons twee het baie nagte laat oor verskeie sake en in soeke na oplossings vir ons land en sy probleme gesit en gesels.

Ons het mekaar gereeld uit die bloute per WhatsApp gevra hoe dit gaan en of die families nog wel is.
As ek op die langpad was het hy gereeld gebel om te hoor of ek al by die huis in Pretoria is en of ek al veilig in Kaapstad aangekom het.

Ons sou mekaar nog hierdie jaar besoek het, maar dit het ongelukkig nog nie gerealiseer nie.

Ongeag ons politieke verskille in die komitee, het daar tog die afgelope drie jaar ’n besonderse band tussen lede van die Komitee oor Gesondheid gevorm.

Ons baklei met mekaar en hard ook, ja, maar ons gesels en lag net so hard saam.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 17 Die respek wat ons vir mekaar het is werklik iets besonders en daarom is dit tog hartseer as een van ons kollegas skielik oornag afsterf en jy die volgende oggend begroet word met die slegte nuus.

English: To the family of Mr Sokatsha and the caucus of the ANC, on behalf of the FF Plus, our sincere condolences.

His death was indeed very tragic and shocking to all of us.
We, as members of the Portfolio Committee on Health have become like a family, despite our political differences and if something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.

We felt each other’s pain.

May God be with the family of Mr Sokatsha and the colleagues of the ANC.

Rest in peace, my friend.

You, will be missed.

Afrikaans: Rus in vrede, my vriend.

Ons gaan jou baie mis.

Dankie.


Ms M E SUKERS: Hon Chairperson, I stand to extend the condolences of our President, Rev Kennith Meshoe, and the leadership of the ACDP to the family, friends and the organisation, the ANC, on the passing of Mxolisa Simon Sokatsha.

It is with shock and sadness that I learned that Mr UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 18 Sokatsha passed on the Saturday morning after his fatal accident.
It was very hard, because, as mentioned by hon Van Staden and Shaik Emam that morning, this Sixth Parliament has experienced the most deaths that both have ever seen in their political lives.

It calls us to pause and consider what we must do in response, and collectively, we should take the moments like these to reflect on our own lives what it means for our country when we lose leaders of the calibre of Mr Sokatsha.
Mr Sokatsha, ... Afrikaans: ... as ek nou in Afrikaans moet sê, was ’n oordentlike mens en ’n tipiese onderwyser, met ’n hartlikheid so eie aan die Noord-Kaap en die Karoo - die Noord-Kaapse menslikheid met die ope hart en die warm geaardheid soos die aarde waarvandaan hy kom.

Die laaste vergadering van die portefeuljekomitee voor sy ontydige dood het eerbare Sokatsha die vergadering gelei.

Hy het na my verwys met my volle name, Marie Elizabeth Sukers.
English: And no one has called me that in a long time, with both names.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 19 Afrikaans: En hy het met ’n glimlag gesê, eerbare Sukers, ... English: ... that smile is what I was looking for on your face.

We must bring a smile to each other’s faces.

Afrikaans: So, aan die mense van mnr Sokatsha, ek wil vir u dankie sê dat u u pa en u man met ’n land en sy mense gedeel het, en met die mense van Richmond.
Dankie dat u hom toegelaat het om ’n legacy [nalatenskap] agter te los, wat baie mense sal onthou.

English: For those of us who believe in the Lord, we know that when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord.

Mr Sokatsha introduced himself to me as my brother in the faith.

We have what the hymn describes, a blessed assurance.

I am going to read the first verse.

It is an old hymn that carries the truth for every believer and it is my encouragement to you.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine, UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 20 Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Saviour all the day long.

May the Lord bless and keep you, may His face shine upon you.

[Applause.]
[Applause.]

Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Hon Chairperson, allow me, behalf of the NFP, to express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Mr Mxolisa Sokatsha.

Also, allow me to extend our condolences to the ANC, and yes, indeed, every time we got to this platform and had to extend condolences, it was very, very painful.

We can lose a Member of Parliament and you can replace them, but when you lose a father, it is very difficult to replace.
So, we know and understand the pain that you go through.

I had the privilege of serving in the Portfolio Committee on Health with hon Sokatsha.

Indeed, I can assure you and I want to say this to his wife and his children, if there is anyone and anything you should be proud of, it is your late husband UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 21 and your dad.

He served this country with distinction, starting in 2003 in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature.
Until his last breath, he served this country and he served his people.

We often forget the sacrifices that public representatives, like Members of Parliament make, the time they stay away from their families.

Sometimes their children grow up without these fathers and mothers as politicians or public representative and when you realise it, they are grown.

So, look at the time you have lost.


Look at the time that you have spent away from home, look at time and look at the risks you have put yourself in, when you spend time on the roads.

And her indeed was a tragic accident that Mr Sokatsha lost his life in.

I want to finally say to the family, friends and the ANC, you can go back there and rest, knowing that, indeed, this servant of the people served us with the highest level of integrity, commitment and dedication.
You can be proud that he left a legacy and my appeal to his family members is follow in the footsteps of your dad, who served the people and this nation.

Our condolences once again to you, the ANC.

It is a sad day, but we can celebrate the life of this hero.

Thank you very much.


UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 22 Mr S M JAFTA: Hon House Chairperson, the AIC gives its revolutionary banners in honour of the exemplary life that comrade Mxolisa Sokatsha embraced during his lifetime.

Comrade Sokatsha’s life was cut short in a tragic car accident outside Belmont in the Northern Cape.
He dedicated his life to public service and occupied various roles in the Northern Cape, including serving as the Chairperson of the Education Committee in the Northern Cape Legislature.

He also held various things as the MEC of the province in various capacities, such as being the MEC for Social Development, Roads and Public Works, and Arts, Sports and Culture.

His passion for activism was laid bare when he led the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union in Graaff Reinet and Richmond.
More rewarding to his movement, the ANC, was his commitment to the ANC itself, which he served with abiding loyalty for three years as the Chairperson of Pixley ka Isaka Seme Region.

Our sympathy goes to his family and loved ones.

His very commitment to our democracy has improved the lives of many UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 23 South Africans and we thank him and his family for that.

May his soul rest in peace.

I thank you.


Mr M G E HENDRICKS: Al Jama-Ah extends our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the hon Sokatsha member of the African National Congress, who passed on in a tragic car accident on the night of 25th March 2022 exactly two months ago.

The late Sokatsha has been described by his ANC colleagues as a revolutionary and a disciplined cadre.
He had spent most of his life fighting for a democratic and free South Africa and he became the first Mayor of Richmond in a postapartheid South Africa.

When a revolutionary falls the earth shakes and today we still feel the tremors of sadness.

Sokatsha was a qualified educator and an accountant and will be remembered as a humble person.

He was dedicated to his work and served well on the Portfolio Committee on Health.
I attended the first meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Heath regularly, as an alternate member and he asked me to make more time as he saw I was passionate about Universal Health Care and he wanted the first heath care facility to be launched on the Cape Flats.

He was committed to taking forward the implementation of the National Health Insurance Act.
The way Al Jama-Ah wants to honour the late Sokatsha is to make sure UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 24 that the NHI brings medical care to all in South Africa [Applause.]

and it is remembered that this is part of the legacy he left behind.
He will be remembered as a dedicated public servant who prioritised the interest of the people made of fond memories of him bring comfort to the family, friends and his colleagues during this time of bereavement, especially the hon members of the ANC in this House.

May his soul rest in peace.

IsiZulu: Hamba kahle, Comrade Sokatsha.

Dr K L JACOBS: Thank you, Chief Whip and Chairperson, “I lift my eyes to the mountains where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” And that is Psalms 121 and you might ask why am I quoting this verse.

It’s purely because in the last six months, it is what hon Sokatsha and I have been talking a lot about.

You might not know, but we had many telephone calls late in the night - ask Mrs Sokatsha there.
Whenever there is a bit of trouble on my side or little trouble on his side, we would call each other and apart from that we would also talk about the work of the portfolio committee.

He would always talk about his studies in theology and the fact that he was going to be a full-time UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 25 pastor when he had completed his term in Parliament and he would say my real job is ‘umfundisi’.

You know I would always wonder.


So, I would say hon Sokatsha, of course, I would say Comrade Sokatsha what is it that you are really talking about?

He would say the following verse and I’m going to quote this verse and I’m also going to give the following verses and it was Psalms 27:1 and I’m going to say it in Afrikaans because that was the favourite language of hon Sokatsha.
Afrikaans: “Die Here is my lig en my heil: vir wie sou ek vrees?” Dit is baie interessant dat Biskop April vandag dieselfde vers aangehaal het.

Ek was baie beïndruk want dit spreek boekdele oor die persoon dat ons almal vandag hierdie waarheid oor die persoon praat, dat ons oor dieselfde vers kon gepraat het.

In vers 8 word ons herinner dat daar staan, u het vir my hard gesê, kom en dien my.

Ek antwoord, Here, ek kom u dien.


English: Now, you know, when we spoke about this with hon Sokatsha, he would say I am preparing myself and I always thought he was looking for the salvation, the truth of salvation and what had that to mean to his own life.
Now, through those discussions hon Sokatsha was revealing the real person that he was and UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 26 that all his participation in the matters of the struggle of the people, no matter where he was finding himself or which deployment he was participating in, he served this with honours because of an intense awareness of his duties in terms of his faith to serve the people.
No wonder he served in so many organisations and they had reached such heights in those organisations to serve as chairperson, to serve as MEC etc.

It was all rooted in himself and his faith in what he believed in.

He was really a true social activist because that was at the heart of his participation in the work of the people.

Whether it was as a student, a struggle in education as a member of teacher’s union, a struggle for legislative changes at provincial or national level.
Everywhere he was you would have seen it would have been in the struggle of our people, as we are still looking towards the emancipation that is ours and we should be reminded that we have not fully really reached that emancipation.

Now, hon Sokatsha being described as humble, hard working with a character of a true example of a Christian faith, was also involve in the improvement of the lives of the people of South Africa.
The departure of hon Mxolisi Sokatsha through untimely UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 27 and tragic death has unspeakably devastated the Portfolio Committee on Health.

He was deployed at the National Assembly by his party, the ANC and after the 2019 general elections.

He was then deployed to this committee.

The work of this portfolio committee and its mandate was very close to hon Sokatsha’ s heart.
He prioritised the work of the committee and played his role in it with outstanding dedication and commitment.

He was invested in it because he believed firmly in the National Health Insurance and the right for everybody to have access to quality health care.

Again, the good of all and the good for all was the mainstay of his beliefs.

He leaves a shining legacy we will forever be indebted to him for the work that he has done.

Those closest to him describe him as I said earlier as a family man.
A man who would always speak about his wife and his children in every single telephone conversation.

I knew each and every of them by name.

I knew the characters already by what hon Sokatsha would be speaking to me about on the phone.

I know that there is one task that he had left with me and his daughter to be re-admitted to medical school after they’ve had some struggles.

Really, I’m raising this on this platform so that we work as a portfolio committee towards that achievement.
Something that he really wanted to happen during UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 28 his lifetime.

So I commit myself that we are going to work very hard towards that.

[Applause.]

To the family, his wife and his children, I want to say you were much loved by your husband and father.

I firmly believe that hon Sokatsha had tasted that salvation which he was seeking before his departure from this very earth, which was so untimely.

It was a great shock to all of us.


It was said here and really expected that maybe with COVID it was a very bad time for him, and that we were on the telephone so much and I do miss that time when he was on the ventilator that I was not able to speak with him.
It was a very difficult time being concerned and all of us not being able to contact each other during that period and we must always be reminded people of South Africa about that time so that we are very careful about what we do in terms of our interactions and please wear your mask, maintain social distance, sanitize regularly, wash your hands with water and soap, make certain that you protect the family and the people whom you love.

We are missing you already, my dear friend.

IsiZulu: Hamba kahle.


UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 29 English: Rest in peace.

Thank you very much.

[Applause.]

Sepedi: MODULASETULO WA NGWAKO (Moh M G Boroto): Re a leboga Ng Jacobs English: That concludes the speakers list on this matter but before I proceed... Setswana: A kere mo gareng ga rona re nale Mme Sokatsha, barwadie ba ga Rre Sokatsha, ba bogadi ba ga Sokatsha, le ba leloko ba teng.

Le buile thata ka barwadie ba ga Ntate Sokatsha.


Ke kopa go eme bona le ba bone ka mo Ntlong.

Ke barwadie ba gagwe bale le leloko le le feletseng teng le ka ema ka maoto.

Re a leboga.

Le ka nna mo fatshe.

English: Hon members, I take it that there are no objections to the motion being adopted.

Will members please rise to observe a moment of silence in the memory of Mr M S Sokatsha.
The presiding officers associate themselves with the motion, the UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 30 condolences of the House will be conveyed to the Sokatsha family.

Thank you very much.

Debate concluded.

Motion agreed to.


DEBATE ON AFRICA DAY: AFRICA MONTH – STRENGTHENING RESILIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY IN NUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT Dr M S MOTSHEKGA: Hon House Chairperson and hon members, in general, we use Africa Day to celebrate the gathering of the African leaders in Addis Ababa to form the Organisation of African Unity, OAU, on 25 May 1963.
Africa is the richest continent, but her people are the poorest because some of the modern African leader have forgotten that the struggle of the African people, as our icon Walter Sisulu called it, was the realisation of the right of the African people to self- determination.

This right entails a struggle for political, social and economic rights.

After achieving political rights some African leaders thought it was uhuru, that is, they had arrived.
They did not know UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 31 that political right without social and economic rights is not complete freedom and independence.

Every nation needs social freedom which resides in the arts, culture and heritage of her people.

The soul of a nation resides in these social or soft power.

Above all the life of a nation resides in its economic power which included the power of a nation to feed, heal and dress itself.
Today, Africans depend on foreigners to provide food, medicines and attire.

Allow me therefore, hon Chairperson, to highlight the principal object of the struggle of the African people and the constraints on the enjoyment of these rights by our people.
During the World War 2, Africa witnessed the emergence of the new dynamic and radical African leaders who demanded the reform of the colonial system but its total abolition and the restoration of African dignity, sovereignty, political, social and economic freedom.

These African revolutionary leaders convened the Pan Africanist Congress in Manchester in 1945.

This congress was attended by, inter alia, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, who was rooted in Ethiopianism and Pan Africanism.
During his sojourn in the United States and the Great Britain, Kwame Nkrumah revived and rekindled interest in Pan Africanism but also called for the liberation of Africa UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 32 from the colonial rule and work out strategies and tactics for accomplishing thins which some of the leaders later applied.

Kwame Nkrumah led Ghana to independence in 1957.


The following year 1958, he convened the first Pan African congress at Accra, the capital city of Ghana, on the African soil.

The eight participants could not have been more diverse, not one of them was at all close to the liberation ideology of Nkrumah and yet they met together, committed themselves to the decolonisation of Africa by nonviolent means and agreed to condone the armed struggle in Algeria and South Africa.
They also agreed not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs.

Kwame Nkrumah, the father of the Pan Africanism, in December 1958, he convinced a conference of all African people.

This conference projected an unexpected lay of a rapid agenda for the decolonisation of Africa.

Kwame Nkrumah who had inspired his historic all African People’s Conference wrote about it as follows, and I quote: From 5th to 13th December, I invited freedom movements and political parties in Africa to a conference in Accra.
Delegates came from British, French, Belgian, Portuguese UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 33 Spanish colonial territories.

This was the first all All- African Peoples' Conference.

What I had in mind was to give the forces of the liberation movement the strategy to move into action and the tactics for that strategy.

It was to sound the clarion call for the advance and final assault on imperialism and complete eradication of colonial oppression in Africa.
Freedom fighters came from all over the continent and those who were then unknown are now the leaders, presidents and prime ministers of the colonised territory they represented.

My object again was to infuse into the African revolution new spirit and a new dynamism and to create this where They were lacking.

At the conference two significant points were made.
First and foremost, Nkrumah committed himself to the total liberation of the Africans in a more definite and emphatic terms, and I quote: Ghana supports the struggle of the depended people for the speedy elimination of imperialism, colonialism and the eradication from this continent of racialism as I have always declared even before Ghana attained her present sovereign status.
The struggle for the UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 34 independence of Ghana will be meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa.

In rejecting racism whether it be white or black, Nkrumah said, and I quote: When I speak of Africa for Africans it should not be interpreted in the light of my emphatic declaration that I do not believe in racialism.

The concept of Africa for the Africans does not mean that other races are excluded from it.
It only means Africans who are naturally in the majority in Africa shall and must govern themselves in their own countries.

The conference was attended by, among others, leaders of the national liberation movements of Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde island.

All in all, there some 300 delegates representing the entire continent t of Africa.
The African iconic leader, Patrice Lumumba, of the Congo made a short speech where he denounced the balkanisation of Congo and ended his speech with the cry of down with colonialism and UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 35 imperialism, down with racism and tribalism, long live the Congolese nation, long live independent Africa.

The conference passed a number of resolutions.


The most important resolution was on imperialism and colonialism in order to combat the colonial strategy of divide and rule.

In 1960, when a handful of African countries were free, there was a first sitting of the UN General Assembly.

That sitting brought together newly independent African leaders in Harlem, the incubation centre of African nationalism.

There, they met Fidel Castro who emerged as the leader of the Afro African nations.
It was in that conference where the basis for the African struggle was clearly explained in resolution 15(14) which was championed by Khrushchev, the Soviet leader.

That resolution made it clear that all colonial powers must transfer power to the colonised people without restrictions or any form of conditions.

That meant therefore that the type of freedom that had to be given to the people must be full political, social and economic freedom.
If that had happened, we would not have an Africa today which is poor, where the people are sick, the people cannot help themselves and they rely on foreign countries, especially Europe to feed, heal and dress them.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 36 This means that land reform is indispensable for food security.

We cannot after so many years of freedom in Africa have a situation of food insecurity.
But food insecurity is not going to depend on resolutions by parliaments that there must be enough food for the people.

The food security can only be guaranteed if we effect meaningful land reform because the land is the basis of any economic power.

On the land people are able to produce food, medicines, minerals, arts and crafts.

During the colonial times the monopolists owned agricultural farm lands, water and mineral rights and markets.
The colonialists were therefore able to control food and mineral production and to reduce colonial peoples into their cheap labour.

Leaders like Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah and Thomas Sankara became the victims of the European imperialism because they opposed monopolies and exploitation of colonial people.

This European aggression forced newly independent African states to become depended on foreign monopolies for food, medicines and all goods and services.
Thus African countries do not own their economies.

Countries like Zimbabwe, which was the bread basket of the Great Britain, was brought to its knees by trying to regain the land and natural UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 37 resources which is a prerequisite for establishing a national economy.

African countries ... [Time expired.]

Sepedi: Ke a leboga, mme.


Sepedi: Mna N P MASIPA: Kgotsong ... English: ... House Chairperson, the Charter of the United Nations Organisation enjoins African states to amongst other things, create a better life for all the peoples of Africa.

Post 1994, South Africans were promised freedom and a better life for all.

South Africa’s Constitution that was adopted in 1996, bears the hallmarks of a liberal democratic order.
The Organisation of African Unity also enjoins leaders in the continent to play an active role in the global arena.

The Ukraine war provides Africa with an opportunity to introspect on global matters that affect our food basket.
In keeping with the spirit of the Organisation of African Unity Charter the Democratic Alliance leader not only spoke against the war in Ukraine, but also visited the conflict zone and saw UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 38 first-hand the threat of food scarcity and looming high inflation if the war persists.

That is what Africans do to show love and care.

Sepedi: Batho ke go hlolana, ke segagaborena seo.


English: House Chairperson, while 60% of the world’s arable land is in Africa, the continent is faced with many farming challenges with abundant opportunities.

These challenges and others contribute to many of our brothers and sisters to flee the continent to the world to seek asylum and refuge due to hunger and other economic reasons because of our institutions are being mismanaged.
House Chair, our challenges are not without opportunities, already prior to Russian war on Ukraine, prices of fertilizers have already gone up by over 100% and we expect another increase of 70%.

All the potassium and 70% of the nitrogen fertilizers are being imported.
While Foskor is supposed to be the able could use fertilizers cheaply for the whole Southern African Development Community, Sadc, region due to the mismanagement, the institution is producing less than 20% of the needed fertilizers for farmers.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 39 As parliamentarians, let’s join hands and let’s make agriculture work in the continent.
We are duty-bound to ensure institutions such as Foskor work and that the continent continue to produce enough fertilizers and lower costs of production and ultimately lower the costs of Inter-African trade in the continent.

House Chairperson, under the ANC many agricultural institutions collapsed due to poor policy choices on diplomatic relations, investment and food production.

For example, the Land Bank used to provide cheaper loans to farming community.

Poor policies choices have failed the bank.


The lesson learned in the continent is not to repeat the mistakes of Zimbabwe’s government expropriation of farms.

Despite these uncertainties caused by poor policy choices ... Afrikaans: Ons weet dat boere altyd ’n plan maak.

[Tussenwerpsels.]

English: To strengthen resilience and sustainability in nutrition and food security on the continent, we must accept that the continental and global challenges affect our farmers.
The quiet diplomacy on global matters by our government, the ANC UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 40 government, is a cause for concern.

We have a duty to engage the global community to avoid the global risk of food production.

While the potential dire consequences of Russian war on the continent is huge, our farmers remain resilient.

They need government support not the corruption from our colleagues on the right.
As we celebrate Africa Day’s milestone, let’s join hands and address the looming danger of inflation on the food production.

May this Africa Day be remembered as the day when Africa took herself a right place in the world, a day when African legislators stood up and spoke out against attacks on foreign sovereign countries and the threat imposed on world food production.

I thank you, Chair, and happy Africa Day ...

[Applause.]

... Ms T P MSANE: Thank you, Chairperson.


Chairperson, on this day in 1963, 32 heads of states of newly independent African nations met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in order to chant a new path forward for growth and development in the continent.

They did so mindfully of the devastation brought to the people of the continent by colonial conquest that had ravaged the continent over three centuries at the time.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 41 They were mindful of the fact that for a period of over four centuries, the west had abducted over 25 million African people and turned them into slaves, in the plantations of America which in turn provided the basis upon which American and the entire western capitalist economy grew.

They were not confused about the artificial nature of the borders that colonialism installed in the continent which separated families, clans and communities.
The emperor, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who hosted the inaugural conference of the Organisation of African Unity, outlined the purpose of the meeting in 1963 as follows, and I quote: We stand today on the stage of world affairs, before the audience of world opinion.

We have come together to assert our role in the direction of the world affairs and to discharge our duty to the great continent whose 250 million people we lead.
Africa is today at mid-course, in transition from the Africa of yesterday to the Africa of tomorrow.

Even as we stand here, we move from the past into the future.

The task of which we have embarked, the making of Africa, will not wait.
We must act to shape and UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 42 mold the future and leave our imprint on events as they slip past into the history ... Today, 59 years later, Africa has not made much progress towards freeing herself from the bondage of neocolonial control.
as the towering Pan-Africanist, Dr Kwame Nkrumah had anticipated the failure to unite the African Continent has given birth to clusters of client states who exists mainly for the purpose of enabling the continued neocolonial control of the continent by their former colonial masters.

Despite her resources today, Africa and the African people as a whole continue to be the wretched of the earth.
Africa has about 60% of all arable land in the world, good and large enough to wipe out poverty and famine in the continent, yet, we are home to the world’s largest population of poor people.

Most of the land is in the hands of neocolonial masters and locked up in unreasonable land administration systems that prevent development.
The Grand Inga hydroelectric power project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, can produce power that can light up the entire continent, but it is also in the hands of neocolonial masters who will do everything to prevent the completion in that project who will ensure that it benefits them more than it benefits.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 43 The continent has the largest reserves of Platinum, the largest reserves of gold and diamonds.
The Congo alone has 80% of the world’s reserves worth of cotton, a mineral that is used to produce advanced cellphones.

The Ivory Coast and Ghana are the world’s largest producers of cocoa and yet, the very same producers of cocoa hardly see the product such as chocolate made from the very same cocoa they produce.

Africa does not benefit from all these resources because we have maintained the colonial structure of our economies.
We extract from the African soil critically important resources and these are then shipped outside the continent as raw products to be processed in the western countries and imported back at a premium price of finished goods.

This is a consequence of a lack of centrally planned economy for the continent.

We need to revisit key plans such as the Abuja Treaty, which emphasised and had timelines for the ultimate unification of the continent.
We need a bold, Pan-African approach for African development premised on the political and economic unity of the continent.

The new African Continental Free Trade Agreement, must emphasise the need for manufacturing and infrastructure development as the backdrops upon which the African continent UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 44 can develop.
The Pan-African Parliament must be given greater legislative powers and have exclusive areas for legislation making for the entire continent.

Areas such as defence, economic and monetary policies, must be driven from a centralised basis to shield Africa from opportunistic and greedy western influences.

Lastly, we call on France and all other colonialists to leave the African continent alone.

We can do well on ourselves without the interference of former colonisers.
African liberation day will remain a hollow celebration if we do not do what the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity sought to achieve, and that, is a united continent able to feed and develop her own people.

Africa Day without full control of African resources, without a complete withdrawal of former colonial masters, without full eradication of poverty and underdevelopment, it is just a hollow celebration.

Thank you very much, House Chairperson.


Mr M HLENGWA: Hon House Chairperson, according to an April 2022 media report, the International Committee of the Red Dross says that about 346 million people in Africa are facing severe food insecurity, meaning that they have likely experienced hunger.

The causes are listed as conflict, climate UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 45 change and rising food and fuel prices.
It is therefore fitting that the AU’s theme for this year is: Strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the African continent, and that we must gather today on Africa Day to discuss this critical issue.

This, particularly as South Africa has not escaped unscathed.

According to a 2022 Statistics SA report, in 2020 almost 23,6% of South Africans were affected by moderate to severe food insecurity while almost 14,9% experienced severe food security.
With nearly one in four South Africans forced to skip meals and go to bed hungry on a regular basis, one could be forgiven for focussing first on the nutrition needs of our own people and developing our own resilience before reaching out to the rest of the continent.

Our Constitution under section 27 states that everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water.
However, instead of ensuring the provision of this most basic human right in necessity for life, government departments lose billions to corruption, and irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure every year.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 46 On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have civil society and organisations like FoodForward SA that provide millions of meals to vulnerable South Africans ... access all nine provinces each year.
Delivering one meal costs FoodForward SA only 68 cents, which is less than R1 per meal.

How many millions could be rescued from hunger if government had a faithful steward of the country’s ...

[Inaudible.]

Surely then, we would also have sufficient resources to provide assistance to our food-insecure brothers and sisters on the African continent.
As the IFP, we do not sit idly by as children starve and this is why food security has long been part of the IFP’s top priorities where we govern, consistent with the teachings of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, not just on Africa Day or in Africa Month, but every day, every month and every year.

Where the IFP governs, we support subsistence farmers by providing materials and equipment to promote local economic development.
We develop co-operatives and assist emerging farmers, in particular projects led by women and the youth.

Farm workers are a key component for food security and the IFP prioritises their rights and needs.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 47 We also need to promote the sustainable use of land and ensure necessary access to land.

All these initiatives echo the IFP’s principles of self-help and self-reliance.

As the saying goes, give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

The realities of food insecurity on the continent cannot be divorced from the raging conflicts and the instability which we see.

It therefore becomes important that a multipronged approach not only focusses on diplomatic relations towards democratic stability on the continent but a far more aggressive and deliberate approach towards ensuring food security on the continent, particularly for women and children.
The agenda of silencing the guns has to take precedence in this regard as well.

Closer to home, we need to do more.

We need to focus our energies on ensuring that we revive the farms that used to ensure that our people have food.

We need to have a skills transfer and an education system that is responsive to the needs of the agricultural sector to ensure the sustainable livelihoods of our people in so far as food security is concerned.

This is non-negotiable because without food there is no future.
Our people are hungry now and the challenges of UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 48 malnutrition confront us today.

This requires a health care system that is also responsive and fully functional to the daily lived realities of our people.

It requires ...

[Inaudible.]

... our people about what it is that will ensure that they live a fruitful life in so far as nutrition is concerned.

IsiZulu: Ngiyabonga kakhulu Sihlalo.


Afrikaans: Me T BREEDT: Voorsitter, ’n belofte van R50 miljoen aan Kuba om hul voedselnood aan te spreek.

’n Bedrag van R22 miljoen vir ’n vlag om nasiebou te bevorder.

Beide hierdie aankondigings was ondeurdag en uit voeling met die realiteit van Suid-Afrikaanse burgers.
Die eerste moes deur ’n dringende hofinterdik van ’n burgerregteorganisasie tydelik gestop word, met die tweede wat ook nou hersien word nadat nagenoeg die hele Suid-Afrika saamgestem het dat R22 miljoen vir ’n vlag ’n slegte idee is.

Dit, terwyl 40% van Suid-Afrikaanse burgers honger is en aan die amptelike vereiste van honger voldoen.

Dit is ’n skreiende skande!


UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 49 Ons kollegas uit die regerende party-banke praat gereeld oor Afrika-eenheid en die Afrika-Vryehandelsooreenkoms.

Daar word baie oor die kontinent ... hoe lande moet hande vat om mekaar by te staan en voedselsekuriteit aangespreek moet word in die kollektief van die kontinent ... geredeneer.

Daar is Afrikadag en Afrikamaand.


English: However, when push comes to shove, this ANC government would rather prioritise historical friends than the continent.

Until this is not addressed, we will not help to debate sustainability in nutrition or food security on the African continent.

Today is a futile exercise because it will not assist the millions of hungry Africans throughout this continent.

Talk shops do not work; action helps.

When looking at the statistics, it is quite shocking.
Chronic nutrition contributes to stunting in children under five years of age.

This means that a child is too short for his or her age and it can have long-term negative impacts on health and development.

The prevalence of stunting is the highest in the world in Eastern, Middle and Southern sub-regions of Africa.

In South Africa, one child in four under the age of six has chronic malnutrition and is stunted because of that.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 50 Acute nutrition also contributes to the wasting of children.

In 2020 globally, 45,4 million children under the age of five wasted away; a quarter of that in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

According to the 2021 Global Hunger Index of countries that are most affected by hunger and malnutrition, only eight out of the 30 are not in Africa.
In 2017, conflict was the major cause of food insecurity and hunger in 18 countries, affecting about 74 million individuals.

Eleven of those 18 countries were in Africa, which totalled about 37 million people.

More than 42% of South Sudan’s population faced severe food insecurity and that was in a ... Afrikaans: ... oorlogsone.

Suid-Afrika staan op 40%, buite ’n oorlogsone.

English: The history of hunger and famine in Africa reads like a horror novel.
Afrikaans: Sedert die 1960s is dit of droogte of oorlog of vloede wat voedselsekuriteit in Afrika bedreig.

Miljoene is al dood as UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 51 gevolg daarvan.

Terug op eie bodem, die mees onlangse is die vloed in KwaZulu-Natal.

English: If KwaZulu-Natal has taught us one thing, it is that South Africa does not yet have a structured system to deal with food security and disasters such as drought or floods.

Afrikaans: Voorsitter, ek sluit af.


Te midde hierdie faktore, natuurlike rampe en oorloë, is daar nog een bydraende faktor wat voedselsekuriteit in Afrika en spesifiek in Suid-Afrika kniehalter en bedreig.

Dit is die ANC en die ANC se ideologie.

Solank as wat die ANC regeer, sal daar nie voedselsekuriteit in Afrika of in Suid-Afrika wees nie.
Ek dank u. English: Rev K R J MESHOE: Chairperson, our country has proven in a number of ways that it has the capacity to recover quickly from a period of serious challenges and difficulties.

To strengthen resilience in this nation, we need to build strong relationships with our families, neighbours and friends to enable us to build support systems that will sustain us during difficult times and stormy days.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 52 Africa has not done well in the area of sustainability.

A number of positive things that were inherited after independence have been lost because of the lack of sustainability.

In most cases, African countries inherited excellent road and rail infrastructure that could not be sustained because of the lack of proper maintenance by subsequent governments.
During my primary school days, children were taught proper hygiene, good nutrition and how to plant and grow vegetables, but those good practices were abandoned years later.

We now see how governments are failing to teach society, particularly school children, how to balance individual rights with personal responsibility for our actions and future.

We cannot strengthen sustainability in nutrition that our children and the broader society know nothing about.
As threats of food insecurity increases by the day, governments must start programmes to encourage members of the public to start growing their own food.

Families should be encouraged to start their food gardens and to train their children and friends to do likewise.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 53 The continent of Africa cannot continue complaining when we can do things for ourselves.
We need leaders in Africa that tackle human rights abuses, stop the increasing incidents of gender-based violence on the continent and create environments that will be safe for all those living and visiting their countries.

Africa needs to silence the guns, and start using their vast land to produce food for their people and start planning to export food to those countries that don’t have the spacious tracks of land that we are blessed with.

We have the potential.

We have the means.


Africa should start looking inside as to what is holding us back and see the potential of feeding not only the continent but parts of the world.

Thank you.

Setswana: Rre N L S KWANKWA: Ke a leboga, Modulasetilo.

Dumelang bagaetsho.
Dumelang bagaetsho.

English: Ladies and gentlemen, I think the point we should make here, perhaps less eloquently ... they’re making it less eloquently than other speakers, is the fact that Africa is not short or UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 54 does not lack ... is not short of plans.
If you were to study in 1900 the first Pan-African Conference, which was organized by Henry Sylvester Williams, an advocate from Trinidad & Tobago, and then another one in 1919, which was organized in Paris.

You look at, especially, the most important one, the 1945 one, the Manchester conference, where leaders were trying to outline the vision of an African they sought to become.
The speakers that came before us also cited the important The Summit of the Heads of State in 1963 in Addis Ababa, where Haile Selassie was an important host.

Even then, the plan was to try and outline an African renaissance programme which sought to cover a number of aspects, included in them is one of food security.

I want to also remind this sitting that in 1979, many will remember that there was a Monrovia Declaration, which sought to deal with this aspect in particular.
It talks about food supply and food security.

Fast forward to the 1980 Lagos Plan, same thing is contained there.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 55 Fast forward to New Partnership for Africa's Development, Nepad, New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the same issue is contained in there and many other issues.
What lacks, is perhaps commitment on the part of leaders on the African continent, in particular, to make sure that these goals and dreams and plan are indeed realized.

If you were to even look at the Agenda 2063, it’s the same thing that we talk about.

We are very good and eloquent at identifying problems and even writing fancy and glossy problem statements, and even come up with fancy and creative proposals, but the problem with the African continent is the lack of implementation.
I want to give an example.

I grew up in one of the Bantustans in the former Ciskei area where people were encouraged to do subsistence farming.

The point that was made here by Rev Meshoe, Ntate Moruti, is very true that, that is what used to happen in the past.

But it can’t happen in Africa where there are serious and gross human rights violations, where we are failing to silence guns on the continent, where we tolerate despotic regimes on the continent.
But not only that, look at the influence of the former colonial masters on the rest of UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 56 the African continent, especially when you talking about the Francophone region, and what is happening there.
The issue that we want to put forward is that institutional bodies such as the African Union, AU, and the institutional framework that we make possible to the Constitutive Act of the AU, if you remember the one which was adopted in 2000, are the ones that should be helping us to drive these programmes forward because if we don’t do that we are not going to have a coordinated programme and plan for the future.

Amandla!

[Power!]

[Applause.]


Mr B N HERRON: House Chair, South Africa, collectively, produces more food than it can eat ...

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Your attention, hon members.

Give a member a chance, please, your attention.

Thank you.

Mr B N HERRON: House Chair, South Africa, collectively, produces more food than it can eat.

In approximately a quarter of our population experiences food shortages.
With approximately a quarter of our suffering from hunger, how can we expect to build a sustainable and stable society?

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 57 We cannot make progress while young and old are going to bed with empty stomachs.

Environmentalism, sustainability and climate change, are all issues that are no longer up for debate.

They are matters of national, continental, international and even planetary concern.
There are borders, politics and discussions with mother nature.

So, we need to understand that as matter of generational justice, for sake of future generations, we need to make serious change and implement preventative measures.

While other nations struggle to deal with tsunamis, earthquakes and tornados, which wreak havoc in urban environments, we face a completely different type of killer, floods, fanons and drought impact one of the most basic needs, being the access to food.
An issue that the entire African continent has been battling with for decades.

KwaZulu-Natal’s flooding disaster is the living evidence that there is need for rapid change in our attitudes.

That we are not only to combat climate change, but safeguard our people against the fallout after the disaster has taken place.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 58 Food security should be what grounds our ‘we building’ project.
We have lost critical crops for both domestic consumption and exports.

Our task now is to reduce our impact on the climate and build back with the clear understanding of how our consumption of our natural resources, including land, has contributed to the devastation we’ve seen.

We can also take inspiration from the incredible projects being created by African organizations to combat this.
Projects such as the Eastern Cape’s Sibusiso Ready Food Supplement, which provides a taste similar to peanut butter, has been a major success and a major form of aid to children battling malnutrition.

We must support sustainable fishing solutions such as the Zini Fishing Farms in KwaZulu-Natal.

These farms should not be forced to close their doors due to a lack of funding and investment.

Rather they should be protected and supported, as the future of sustainable fishing in South Africa.
Initiatives and companies such as these have the potential to feed and employ families, communities and eventually towns, with the correct support.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 59 Education plays a vital role in understanding the idea of sustainability.

But when our citizens don’t have the necessary ... to survive or support a family, how can we expect them to care about the future rather than the empty plates of the crescent?
We have the South African means, we have the South African innovators, but what we lack is the support of policy in government.

Let this Africa Day be the first seat counted in our journey into a sustainable South Africa.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Ms B S MASANGO: Hon Chairperson, as we join our sister countries on the African continent to celebrate Africa Day, despite the challenges the continent continues to face, we echo the pledge made on the 25th of May 1963 by the Emperor Haile Selassie when he said “May this convention of union last a thousand years.” If there was a time when the continent of Africa needed strong resilience and sustainability in nutrition and food security, that time was now.
But a question has to be asked, what really weakened the resilience and sustainability in nutrition and UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 60 food security in Africa?

The answers are complex and lie in the factors that are way beyond the continent’s control and many can be put at the door of different governments and their leadership.

That is where the strengthening will find its origin.
There have been events unique to Africa, both self-inflicted and inevitable, that have to be evaluated.

Among those beyond her control, one can include climate change, pandemics including the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, drought and the most recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

The need for resilience against these disasters is justified.
However, resilience against conflict, corruption and greed is asking too much from the battered citizens of Africa, given the fact that resilience, according to Oxford dictionary means “The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” Africa’s difficulties have been ongoing, unrelenting, unending and hard-hitting, and they have not given the continent or her citizens time and space to recover quickly.
The statistics of food insecurity in Africa are staggering and are testing the resilience, courage and fortitude of millions of Africans on a daily basis.

The resulting assault forced UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 61 many, against their will, to flee their home countries just to survive.

Let us focus, for example, on South Africa’s shocking food insecurity statistics.
According Stats SA, in 2020 almost 23,6% of South Africans were affected by moderate to severe food insecurity, while almost 14,9% experienced severe food insecurity.

We have confirmed statistics of 3 886 children under the age of five years dying in South Africa’s medical facilities form acute malnutrition in the past five years.

These figures are children who die in medical facilities, this means the picture is far bleaker when one considers the number of children dying at home.
But it is hardly surprising, given the runaway food prices that so many unemployed can ill afford.

According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group’s household affordability index in April 2022, a household food basket increased by 2,1% from R4 450,09 in March, to R4 542,93 in April.
It is deeply concerning that government uses none of these readily available data to make decisions that affect millions UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 62 of South Africans.

For example, what is the SRD grant of R350 based on?

What scientific evidence was this based on?

This picture is mirrored against an estimated 346 million people in Africa who are facing severe food insecurity.
It gets even tougher to strengthen resilience when reports say that Africa’s numbers of under-nourished people is growing faster than in any region of the world.

Hon Chairperson, I submit to you that although Africa’s people might be experiencing the most difficult time in recent history, all is not lost.
The men and women sitting in this and many other chambers throughout the continent, enabled by their constitutions can play a meaningful role in ensuring that the theme of today’s Africa Day is realized in foreseeable future.

We owe it to the pioneers who fought gallantly for us to celebrate Africa Day today.

We also owe it to the future generations to bequeath to them a continent worth celebrating.
Hon Chair, I dare politicians to take personal and collective responsibility to reflect on the state of the continent.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 63 May the words I kept seeing during my research on Africa Day for this debate, which are: extreme hunger, drought, conflict and corruption be replaced by abundance, high employment, harvest, peace and justice.

And lastly, may God bless Africa and her people.

[Applause.]
[Applause.]

Setswana: Moh M M E TLHAPE: Modulasetulo wa Ntlo, maloko a Ntlo a a tlotlegang, Maaforika ke a dumedisa.

Ke boitumelo go tsaya karolo mo kgothakgotheng ya go keteka letsatsi la Aforika.

Aforika e re ipelang ka yona.

Ya dimela, diphologolo, dimimerale, dithabamawatle a a ikgethileng.

Re le Maaforika, rele batho ba yona ka ditso tse di farologaneng.

Rotlhe re dumela gore temothuo e botlhokwa mo kontinenteng ya Aforika.
Le fa e sa tsewe tsia mo manaaneng a di politiki le ya mebuso, seo se fokotsa kgonagalo ya peeletso mo temothuong mme ebile se tsenya ditshireletso ya dijo mo pitlaganong.

English: House Chairperson, from the very root of its foundation, the ANC has always been Pan African in outlook and orientation.

Today we celebrate Africa Day, the day on which the UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 64 organisation of African unity was established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963.
This is a very historic day in liberation of all Africans from oppressive, colonial and apartheid rule.

Setswana: Gompieno batshwari ba rona ba etlatlarietsa fa re keteka.

Ba batla gore re dumele gore mathata a ba re a diretseng ka dingwaga ngwaga, ba re tseela lefatshe, tshwana le go tlhoka tiro le go bolawa ke tlala, re ka a dirilola mo nakong e khutshwane.

Mme ba re bolelela ka bobodu, ba re bolelela le ka go ruga madi.
Fela re a itse ka Seaforika gore motho fa are dipodi di a sisa, a be a bone ka tsa kwa gaabo.

English: Hon members, climate change and subsequent depletion of resources have left mutilations to the bulk of African communities, in particular the disadvantaged members of our communities.
In celebrating and supporting Africa Day, I will therefore speak on climate change issues in Africa with regard to UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 65 preservation of environment for sustainable nutrition and food security.
Fellow Africans, the increasingly unpredictable and erratic nature of weather systems around the continent have placed an extra burden on food security and rural livelihoods, widespread destruction of farms and homes by floods previously in Burkina Faso, recent floods in parts of KwaZulu-Natal, Deelpan in the North West Province and some parts of the Eastern Cape here in South Africa as well as the prolonged drought in Ethiopia demonstrate the extend of the threat posed by Africa’s changing climate.
Other adverse impacts of climate change are also manifesting themselves on the continent and this includes heatwaves, increasing crop airs and diseases.

We have experienced as South Africa a fair share of crop air such as fall army worm brown locust infestation even veld fires.

Hon members, the major concerns for Africa’s key economic sectors include a heightened threat to foot security.
In adequate water resource availability, generation in natural resource productivity, diminish biodiversity and increasing land degradation.

All these affect both crops and livestock.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 66 Of late, there has been a great appreciation of the interdependencies between water, energy and food security and this came to known by some academics as water energy food energy nexus approach.
It is argued that water of at the core of sustainable development and has strongly changes that all sustainable development goals and that climate change will add measurable stress to water resources in many regions of the African continent.

Fisheries will particularly be affected due to changes in sea temperatures, declining incomes and rising unemployment are expected to hit agriculture zones.

It is evident that small agricultural towns and dorpies economies are collapsing.
However, we are hopeful as South Africa is moving towards addressing through the district development model approach.

House Chairperson, the commemoration of Africa Day therefore should remind us of the provisions of the AU Master Plan, that is Agenda 2063, the Africa we Want.

Of particular importance are the goals that suggest programmes such as ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition as well as promoting sustainable agriculture.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 67 Implementing climate smart agriculture for increased productivity and production, promoting biodiversity, conservation and sustainable resource management including water security, developing environmentally sustainable and climate resilient economies and communities including natural disaster preparedness.
Hon members, the African Union has a number of continental frameworks and declarations essential for combating Africa’s food and agricultural programme and this includes comprehensive agricultural development programme, the Maputo Declaration, the Abuja Food Security Summit Declaration and Malawi Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation.

In order to guarantee Africa’s food security, there needs to be increased agricultural trade among African states.
The African Continental Free Trade agreement is a historical realisation of the OAU for an increased trade cooperation among African states and African diaspora.

One of the purposes for this agreement is to work towards promotion of industrial development through diversification of UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 68 regional value chain development, agricultural development and food security.
Hon members, much work must go to local level with regard to understanding the impacts and communities’ capacity to adapt.

Our continent must prioritise addressing the challenges of climate change with national development plans adopting pathways that are climate resilient and less carbon intensive.

They must promote clean, efficient energy technologies and sustainable management of natural resources such as land, water and forest.
Such development pathways would help reduce exposure of vulnerable communities in Africa to the adverse impact of climate change.

While at the same time contribute to the global greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts.

We must promote agro forestry with trees that improve soil, fast growing trees for fuel, indigenous fruit trees, to provide added nutrition and income as well as trees that can provide medicinal plant products.

We need to create food banks and discourage food waste.
There efforts to limit emissions in South Africa.

Hon members, we UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 69 must agree that climate change is now part of our daily lives, we have to learn to limit and adapt its impact.

The Bill or Rights in our Constitution is the backbone of our democracy and in it, we have section 24 that deals with promotion and the protection of everyone’s rights for an environment that is not harmful to their health and wellbeing.
National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, processing Climate Change Bill and Presidential Climate Change Commission are some of the issues we must focus on to mitigate and adapt to climate change and meet South Africa’s international obligations.

Above all, we must promote our indigenous food, promote our national bread and produced cultivars by the Agricultural Research Council to fight food insecurity.
We therefore support the call for agricultural intensification and resilience of food production systems to be strengthened through formation of key signage between mitigation and food security.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 70 This means Minister environment and Minister agriculture must collaborate in successfully leveraging finance from mitigation to support climate smart agricultural development strategies.
Fellow Africans, let us all embrace and implement our master plan Agenda 2063, the Africa we want.

I love you Africa and I’m proud to call you home.

May God bless Africa, bless her sons and daughters.

[Unknown foreign language.]

Afrikaans: Baie dankie.

Sepedi: Ke a leboga.

Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: Thank you, hon House Chair, yes, it is correct that Africa is one of the richest continents, but it’s got nothing.

It has 30% of the world’s minerals but doesn’t control it.

It has 40% of arable land.


Only 13% of the food needs of the African continent will be able to be delivered as a result of corruption, looting, maladministration, self- enrichment, wanting to stay in power until the organisation is taken to the grave, and not wanting to relinquish power, that’s what’s happening on the African continent.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 71 I heard somebody saying “God bless Africa”.

God did bless you with all these things.

What did you do?
What did you do?

You took it and destroyed it.

It is exactly what we have done.

Let’s look at it.

The east African community, west African community, the central African community are all sitting with the same problem.

Let me tell you one of the problems you have.

You had 811 million people in Africa in the year 2 000.

That has increased to 1,4 billion in 2021.

That’s the only thing that increased, nothing else.

Let me tell you what the experts are saying.


Low quality education is one of the root causes of why there is no progress in Africa, and this country is one of them.

Let us be honest, poor quality education is not producing the skills that you need in this country like the rest of Africa as well.

The next thing they are highlighting, and very important is the poor infrastructure in the entire Africa.

Exactly the same problem we have here now.


I don’t know if you saw the road – I think it is Worcester – if you saw the road, even very important persons, VIPs, that are taking the Members of Parliament and the Ministers around will not be able to go there.

That I can promise you.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 72 Let me say something to you.

Africa has all the gold, diamond, the copper, the iron ore ...

[Interjections.]
[Interjections.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon Emam.

Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: the platinum ...

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon Emam.

Hon member.

Mr A M SHAIK EMAM: ... but we have nothing.

...

[Interjections.]

... Africans are their own greatest enemies.

That is why there is no success.

As long as you have selfish leaders in Africa who do not want relinquish power, Africans will never be better off.

Thank you very much, sir.


Mr S M JAFTA: Thank you, hon Chair, Africa has 54 recognised states.

Most of these states are conflict-ridden and food insecure.

Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former President wrote that and I quote: “Conflict and fragility poses a major challenge to Africa’s growth prospects”.
Despite Africa boosting natural mineral resources, there is: “Strong evidence that these has not UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 73 resulted in inclusive economic and social transformation”.

That’s according to Obasanjo.


While many African states were bread baskets for the continent, their economies have been affected by rigid nationalisation policies, corruption, struggle for ownership, management and control of natural resources, as well as unequal distribution of these resources.
Besides infrastructure on the continent ... [Inaudible] ... has direct bearing for products ... to produce their own food for example, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 11th largest country in the world, has fewer than 1500 miles of paved roads.

For ordinary citizens, the most common options for transportation are their feet, bicycles and dugout canoes.

We know that road infrastructure is important in the value chain of food production and distribution.
Therefore, Africa must invest in social and road infrastructure for its food security.

It must implement expropriation of land policies with an open eye for food security and agricultural production.

Africa must diversify its export commodities and invest in new technologies sectors such as the ocean economy, aquafishing and agro-processing.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 74 We commend the investment support provided by the African Development Bank in countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Liberia and Sierra Leone, who received budget support programmes in the early stages of peace that helped those countries to further stabilise their economies and also support the agricultural sector and water supply, as well as sanitation infrastructure rehabilitation.
This was seen as central to providing food security in those countries and alleviating the plight of the poor.

Thank you, hon Chair.

Mr M G E HENDRICKS: Hon House Chair, let us be committed to the war crimes, which resonated throughout Africa during the anticolonial struggle which is land, self-determination and the conscience of Ubuntu.

It has been 64 years since the call for Africa day and yet African countries are dependent on the mercy of their former colonial masters.
African countries are still being held ransom by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF.

Ten years after this call, one of the champions for United States of Africa was brother and leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

I would like to read something from his book, The Green Book, when he came up with the third universal theory on how to help Africa to become United States of Africa.
On page UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 75 140, he wrote, and we must understand that what he put in The Green Book is what he had already implemented in his country.

There is a living example of the concept in his Green Book: In this new society, land becomes of all in which each member of the society has a right together with their relations to carry out his cultivations without employing others.

They entitled to cultivate wheat or maize, grow trees or raise animals.
No one hampers them.

This form of ownership is invaluable and nobody is allowed to touch it.

He goes further on page 140 to say: Homes, clothes, food and money are vital necessities for human beings and one’s possession for these items is considered sacred ownership.

But, when one acquires more than one’s needs of these vital necessities, someone else has been deprived of them.

Therefore, society has the right to expropriate what one has in excess of one’s needs.
I hope the EFF is listening on the concept of expropriation and compensation and understand what it really means.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 76 Al Jama-ah wishes every African citizen and residents a happy Africa Day - a day that should be viewed not only as notable but that it should be memorable.

Coming back to Ubuntu, we should say that this is a key concept in African philosophy, it is one that is in line with the teachings of Islam.
These teachings are indeed rooted in Islam’s primary sources.

Together they reinforce universal values that includes, amongst others, honesty, humbleness, goodness, kindness and respect.

Happy Africa Day.

Ms A M M WEBER: The evolution of humanity says South Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes.

Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now.

Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace.

This is Thabo Mbeki from his I am an African speech.
For too long climate change was seen as an issue for the elites, environmentalists, and the academics.

The South African government never seem to realise how much climate processes will affect ordinary South Africans.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 77 As we stand here today, we cannot deny how the two are interlinked.

South Africans are feeling the severe impact of climate change.

Hon Chair, 30,3 millions of South Africans are not at peace.
Their difficulty and setback is poverty and hunger.

They are desperately trying on a daily basis to rise out of the ashes, to get employed, to fight poverty, but to no avail.

13,8 million South Africans are experiencing severe food poverty.

This is an absolute disgrace.

South Africa experienced serious consequences of climate change.
We experience heatwaves, droughts, water scarcity and food insecurity, for example, Day-zero in Cape Town, the Garden Route fires, the impact of Cyclone Eloise and Anna to Mozambique, and how close this is to South Africa’s coastal cities?

The Nkweba Dam in Graaf-Reinet, the heatwave in Cape Town, droughts all over the country impacting on crops and being counterproductive, floods in KwaZulu-Natal, Day-zero in Port Elizabeth.
Before COVID-19, the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, HFIAS, analysis indicates that South Africa already had a very serious food insecurity problem of almost 10 million people.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 78 The high levels of poverty across South Africa leaves many without the resources to buffer themselves and recover from the changing climate.

Poor people do not have access to food.

They do not have money to buy food.


With the petrol price so high, they cannot afford taxis or transport.

Self-sustainable vegetable gardens can only be effective if there is water and correct temperatures.

Children in our country are dying due to malnutrition and hunger.

We cannot turn a blind eye anymore and think that climate change does not have an impact.
South Africa needs leadership that would effectively and actively combat climate change to ensure that the earth doesn’t warm with another 1,5 degrees Celsius.

No strategic plans or international signed Paris agreements will make a difference without the political will or proper implementation.

Government’s ineffective enforcement of the law to ensure the prosecution of perpetrators is costly.

Coal or fossil fuel power stations keep polluting with no consequences.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 79 The mining industries, especially illegal miners do not rehabilitate, destroying ecosystems and water ways, which causes temperatures to keep on rising.

Industries continue as well as there are no consequences for their behaviour.

Their contribution to climate change is disastrous.

Climate change interventions need to form an integral part of budgets and should not be regarded as an optional.

The people of South Africa deserves more.


They deserve a government that cares, a government that will ensure that there is food security, a government that will ensure that there are consequences to those that jeopardise the lives and food security of other South Africans.

Then only, can we speak about peace.

I thank you.
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND CO- OPERATION (Mr A Botes): Hon House Chairperson, President of South Africa, Mr Ramaphosa, Deputy President Mabuza, Cabinet Ministers, fellow Members of Parliament, Chief Whip of the Majority Party, hon Majodina and all members of the eight the Regional Economic Communities, Recs, of the African Union, AU, I thought ladies and gentlemen and colleagues, it is important to take this House into confidence that Pan-Africanism is the UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 80 most pivotal and important foreign policy priority of the South African government, coupled with global solidarity.
We do so hon House Chairperson, because we acknowledge that we were once a people who were oppressed, subjected through imperialism and colonialism.

We acknowledge that because of global solidarity.

Countries such as Cuba, Egypt, Libya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, constitute an indelible role in our freedom.

We acknowledge that once there was the 1884 Berlin Conference convened by King Leopold II of Belgium.

So, we acknowledge that as the rest of Africa we were once an oppressed nation.
We therefore give homage to Kwame Nkrumah, Abdel Nasser, Samora Machel, Kenneth Kaunda, Haile Selassie, Sam Nujoma, Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere.

We do so because we do identify ourselves as Africa.

The most important questions that Members of Parliament must pose is that: What is the optics through which you look at South Africa and at the rest of Africa?
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 81 If you do identify with Africa, you will realise the true agenda 2063 which speaks about inclusive prosperity and Africa we want that indeed the glass is half full.

If you do not identify with the Pan-Africanism, you will submit that the glass is half empty.
We do identify that there has been progress made hon House Chairperson, through strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the African continent in line with aspiration one.

We do submit that the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG, is pivotal especially, SDG 1 that speaks about ending of poverty, and SDG 2, that speaks about zero hunger.
We do confirm adherence what former President Thabo Mbeki, says is that as Africans to have a common and shared unity, it requires a common and shared value system.

That value system is underpinned as it relates to acknowledging the eestablishment of the African Task Force on Food and Nutrition Development in 1987.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 82 The adoption of the Maputo Declaration, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Nepad, initiative in 2003, the adoption of Malabo Declaration in 2014, the endorsement of the African Union Nutrition Champion in 2014 under the stewardship and the tutelage of His Majesty King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho and the launch of Continental Nutrition Accountability Scorecard in 2019.
Strengthening and the Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent requires Unity of Purpose amongst all African Union states.

It cannot be that according to the African Development Bank, we have 65% of the uncultivated, arable land left in the world to feed nine billion people, by 2050.

In 2017, alone House Chairperson, Africa spent 64,5 billion US dollars on importing food.

This is unsustainable and unaffordable.

It is also absolutely unnecessary.


What we require is to act with unity of purpose; is to immediately eliminate the negative balance to start to saw, grow, process, consume and ultimately export the food ourselves.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 83 Hon House Chairperson, agriculture accounts for 60% of jobs across the continent.
Despite its central role, the agricultural sector accounts for 16,5% of Africa’s gross domestic product, GDP due to its low productivity Implementing the Abuja Treaty in its totality, is therefore more urgent and pressing than yesteryear, the African Continental Free Trade Area, is a perfect vehicle for enhanced Intra-Africa Trade.
We do so hon House Chairperson, because we are conscious that there is a R16,3 billion, commitment from the South African government, in terms of financing its agriculture and food security endeavours.

I have also looked substantively at the Statistics SA report.

Unlike some of our members wants to quote the following: In South Africa, the South African government, through its decisive intervention have reduced multidimensional poverty from 17,9% in 2001, to 7% in 2016.
Household hunger in South Africa has dropped from 2,7 million to 1,7 million per household.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 84 Hon House Chairperson, it therefore hoards that there is a leadership of foresight, that is committed to the Maputo and the Malabo Declarations.

We are committed as the South African government, to all seven of the Malabo commitments.
That includes the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Process which amongst others are led by Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

The second commitment is about the financial facilities in agriculture, led by Zambia, Eswatini, Seychelles and Egypt.

With regard to the Malabo commitment number three of ending of hunger by 2025, South Africa together with Kenya has through the eyes of the AU registered remarkable progress in reducing postharvest losses above the Malabo target of 50%.
South Africa recorded a definitive leapfrogging of 99,88% of reducing postharvest loses.

This should be music to the ears for the farming community of South Africa.

Hon Chairperson, we are committed as the South African government to work towards halving of poverty throughout agriculture by 2025 working amongst others with countries such as Ghana and Morocco.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 85 In terms of Malabo commitment five the Boosting Intra-Africa Trade, we know that the trade figures in South Africa have increased remarkably.
We have recorded that unlike in the past, when South Africa, the chief trading partners to South Africa was the regional block of European Union, EU, what I can confirm to this House today, ladies and gentlemen, is that exports to Africa in 2021, stood at R385 billion, against exports to the EU which stood at R355 billion.

What is says is that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement is an important instrument in mobilising the agricultural communities and enhancement of food security.
On Malabo commitment six the enhancing resilience to climate variability, South Africa is committed to work with Zimbabwe, Namibia, Malawi, Morocco, Lesotho, Ghana, Gambia and the Seychelles around this matter.

Good news!

On Malabo commitment seven the enhancement of accountability, South Africa is leading in this regard together with Rwanda, Morocco, Mauritania, Tanzania, Tunisia, Senegal and Ghana.
We therefore wish to commend the four African states - Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, and Mali, for having met the UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 86 target of spending at least 10% of the national expenditure on agriculture, thereby being the lodestars of the Maputo protocol.
Hon House Chairperson, landownership, inequalities and landlessness are growing, and in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, and Southern Africa, they are high enough to undermine shared growth and social cohesion.

We should therefore take note and learn lessons from the successful redistributive land reform programme undertaken by Mali.
Hon House Chairperson, South Africa appreciates substantively that inclusive prosperity will be accelerated through good governance and we acknowledge the stewardship role of the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM, in this regard.

We equally appreciate the foresight of African Union Development Agency, AUDA-Nepad, which shapes our development dividend, and the economic prosperities to be made possible by the urgent implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
We concur that Africa’s peace and security architecture is a critical driver for development, through the African Peace and Security Architecture, APSA.

UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 87 We must therefore be proud hon House Chairperson that the Organisation of African Unity substantively achieved its objectives of decolonising Africa.
We must be confident on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the African Union that an inclusive prosperity for Africa is a real possibility.

Hon House Chairperson, as I conclude, we must frown at a South African state on politics of brinkmanship.

It says that when a political party seeks to undermine the foreign policy perspective of a government, it is politics of brinkmanship.

We should at all times respect territorial integrity of member states of the United Nations.
We should at all times advance the issues of peace diplomacy in Africa and in the rest of the world.

Therefore, what is important ladies and gentlemen, is that our bilateral trade with both Russia and the United Kingdom, UK, stands at approximately R16 billion.
It is in the interest of the South African government that there should be an immediate cessation of hostilities, there should be the implementation of the 2015 Means Agreement and there should be, ladies and gentlemen the matter of determination for the people in the Donbas region.
UNREVISED HANSARD NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WEDNESDAY, 25 MAY 2022 Page: 88 I wish to conclude and thank you, hon House Chairperson, “Siyabonga”, “Enkosi kakhulu”, Baie dankie vir julle insette”, “Ke itumetse”, “Asante sana”, “Merci beaucoup”, thank you very much.

[Applause.]

The HOUSE CHAIRPERSON (Mr M L D Ntombela): Hon members, may I humbly request your attention.

Hon members 15 hon members, presented a very good debate today.

The rest of this House was very attentive and well- behaved.
So, the decorum of this House was strictly observed.

Congratulations.

That concludes the debate and the business for the day.

This House is adjourned.

[Applause.]

Debate concluded.

The House adjourned at 17:17