Speaker, hon President, hon members of the executive, colleagues and the public, on behalf of the committee on appropriations we would like to welcome the proposed technical amendments by National Treasury and the Minister of Finance. These technical amendments have no financial implications, but help to give practical expression to the new, reconfigured departments, as announced by the President.
As members would be aware, working together with the government and our people, we have achieved a lot as Parliament in the past 15 years. I'm sure members would agree that the state of our nation and economy is better than what was inherited in 1994. Since then we have moved our economy from a period of instability, and we have seen healthy growth levels. Because of the realities that faced us then, we had to voluntarily apply our own structural adjustment programme so that we could achieve our developmental imperatives. Consequently, the reality that confronts us today is that this massive growth has not resulted in greater welfare, the eradication of poverty and greater equality.
However, there is no doubt that we have achieved the highest levels of growth ever, created a booming and stable economy, and have done more to create a better life for all our people. Today, with the expanded budget tabled in this Parliament, we stand better poised to accelerate the delivery of services to our people and to keep afloat in the recession as a result of prudent and sound macroeconomic planning.
We must, however, always be cautious not to remain stagnant and always seek to improve on these achievements as part of our trajectory towards liberating the majority of our people from their dire socioeconomic conditions.
Hon members, as you are aware, we find ourselves in the difficult time of a recession. This will seriously hamper the ability of our government and economy to alleviate the hardships or ravaging poverty and unemployment that our people live under. We have also learned from this recession that how we have always done things is not always foolproof in achieving our objectives.
It is with this in mind that our government must ensure that it does not falter in delivering on its mandate to serve our people. In this period of recession, our people will be more vulnerable to increasing levels of poverty and joblessness. They will have nowhere to look but to their government for interim relief and assurance that their plight is only temporary and that the government stands ready to deliver on its medium to long-term plans to significantly improve their livelihoods.
It is in this regard that I encourage the House to accept the proposed technical amendments tabled here today, as I believe they place the state at the centre of our developmental objectives as a developing state by, one, sharply improving its planning and co-ordinating capacity; two, placing decent work and sustainable livelihoods at the apex of state-led industrial and trade policy; three, fast-tracking massive public-sector investment in rural development and public infrastructure; four, reviewing development finance institutions; five, having a much larger National Youth Service and expanded Public Works; and, lastly, having a larger and reformed social security system.
We can only achieve these goals if we allow the state to have this institutional capacity for government-wide economic planning with the necessary resources and authority to prepare and implement long, short and medium-term economic and developmental planning. We envisage that this reconfigured state will continue to depend on our popular and participatory democracy, on building public-private partnerships and on a social compact amongst all sectors of our society aimed at a common developmental agenda. We, therefore, propose the passing of these technical amendments to the Appropriation Bill. I thank you, Speaker. [Applause.]
There was no debate.
Hon Speaker and hon Deputy President, I move:
That the Report be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.