Order, hon members!
Turning to the budget, The Presidency received an amount of R819 793 million for the 2011-12 financial year. For the administration of The Presidency, an amount of R345 308 million has been allocated. The National Planning Commission is allocated R83 822 million for this financial year and an amount of R385 853 million is allocated to the National Youth Development Agency. [Interjections.]
The Presidency is ready to respond to the challenges and deliver on its mandate. We remain committed to improved government delivery and build a performance-orientated state.
Finally, I would like to thank the director-general and all staff members for their commitment and dedication to their work. It is my pleasure to commend The Presidency Budget Vote to the House. [Interjections.]
I would like to respond to what the hon members were raising when you were heckling. If you are a Member of Parliament, you should know that NYDA is accountable to the Portfolio Committee on Women, Children and People with Disabilities. [Interjections.]
Order, hon members! Order!
It is important that ... [Interjections.] I can't blame you. Sometimes you are not able to attend these committees because you are ... [Inaudible.] [Time expired.]
Mr Speaker and hon members, former President Nelson Mandela conducted the 20th century's most extraordinary public transaction in history with a budget that stood at R24,46 million by 1998 and a salary of R550 000 a year. Madiba took a fractious people and led us in building a free and inclusive nation. He branded South Africa globally. Madiba knew how to lead by example. He had the ability to inspire people to do the right thing. He had the ability to restrain the human inclination to respond violently to extreme provocation. He said the right thing and he did the right thing. He spoke nonracialism and he built nonracialism. He spoke of being inclusive and he actively embraced his adversaries.
Mr President, the budget for your office is R929 million, an increase since 1998 - taking inflation into account - of about 3 000% and your salary for the forthcoming year is R2,4 million. Accounting for inflation, that is double the salary of Mr Mandela in 1998.
What have you accomplished with such a generous endowment? All you really have to show is the National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel's diagnosis of our ills. By the way, the analysis and whole planning exercise of Mr Manuel will cost the taxpayer a whopping R83,8 million this coming year - the cost, may I point out, of Madiba's entire office, adjusted for inflation. That ought to focus the mind on expenditure!
In his Diagnostic Overview, the hon Manuel has identified poor educational performance and inflexible labour regulations as the most formidable barriers to development. Colleagues, in the area of education, I draw your attention to very fundamental findings in this Diagnostic Overview: Firstly, almost 20% of teachers are absent on Fridays and Mondays. Teachers in black African schools teach an average of three-and-a-half hours a day, compared with about six-and-a-half hours a day in formerly white schools, amounting to an accumulated three years of wastage in education. Strike action, sometimes official, consumes as much as 10 days a year, or 5% of school time. The holding of union meetings during school time is often the norm in township schools. Finally - and I am quoting the hon Manuel's Diagnostic Overview - "The procedures for dismissing teachers for misconduct are complex and are therefore rare."
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga will have to attend to some of these problems. Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant will have to deal with others. Given the place of trade unions in the tripartite alliance, however, it is you, Mr President, who must lead the economic governance of our country. It is you, Mr President, who must lead the trade unions to let go of their outdated struggle tactics and begin to make a positive contribution to better education outcomes. If you do not, we face a low- value outcome. The people do not want a low-value outcome; they want a high- value outcome, which is growth and prosperity for all.
The highest function of the President is to lead the building of the nation. At the national funeral of Mama Albertina Sisulu, President Zuma said that, for him, nation-building meant being inclusive, nonracial and, in the ringing words of the Freedom Charter, embracing a South Africa that belongs to all that live in it. In the name of nonracialism and inclusiveness, leadership requires that you stiffen your backbone, get up and say no to those who use racial invective in the public discourse.
Mr President, if you use your office's budget to enhance your personal prestige, you do nothing for leadership. If you use your budget to protect the greedy and tolerate the corrupt, you do nothing for the poor. If you use your budget to divide the nation, you do nothing for reconciliation. But if you use your budget to support those who wish to build the nation, we will respect you. If you use your budget to work on eliminating poverty, we will support you, and if you use your budget to support those who educate our children for a productive life, posterity will thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Motlotlegi Mmusakgotla [Hon Speaker], His Excellency President Jacob Zuma, His Excellency Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members, ...Motswana wa kgale o kile a re kgosi thotobolo o olela matlakala, mme ke dumela thata gore Rre Mphahlele ga a ka ke a tla mo Ntlong e go tla go go pega molato wa go sa dire sentle mo ditlhophong ka ntlha ya fa ena a latlhegetswe ke t?hono ya go dirisa molaetsakhutswe go itlhola kwa IEC gabedi gore a o teng mo bukaikwadisong ya ditlhopo. Jaaka e le moeteledipele, o paletswe ke go etelela batho ba gagwe pele mme o kopa gore re thuse gore lekoko la gagwe le gole. (Translation of Setswana paragraph follows.)
[... there's a Setswana saying that a leader is blamed for everything. I strongly believe that Mr Mphahlele cannot come to this House to put a blame of not performing well in the elections on anyone because he didn't use the opportunity of sending sms's to IEC to double-check whether he was in the electoral register. As a leader, he failed to lead his people and he's requesting us to help his party to grow.]
I want to take this opportunity also to respond to some of the things the Leader of the Opposition said. There are people in this House who today want to claim former President Mandela as their own. [Interjections.] I just want to say to you that you should remember that former President Mandela is a leader of the ANC, a statesman and an icon because of being an integral part of the oldest liberation movement in Africa, the ANC. [Applause.]
The other thing I want to indicate here, Mr President, is that people think that when the ANC - you and the leaders of the ANC - go door to door, you only do so during election time. I just want to say that the ANC does not do door-to-door visits during campaigns only. The ANC has this as its tradition. Those who will read the book written by Helen Joseph, depicting how they worked side by side to ensure that 20 000 women would march to the Union Buildings, will note that she indicated that the ANC leadership, together with women's leadership, went door to door to mobilise the people. [Interjections.]
The ANC has a programmes called "Know your neighbourhood" and "Imvuselelo", which actually entrench programmes of working among the people. So, it is important that you remember that when the ANC leadership and ANC members go out on door-to-door visits, it is just to remind the people that it is time that they renew the mandate of the ANC, not to go and ask them things that they would not know.
The people of South Africa have confidence in the ANC. The people of South Africa know that it is the ANC that is working very hard to get them out of the shacks, to give them water, to give them electricity, to make sure that their children are able to go to school, to make sure that it can implement, through the Deputy President, a programme called the War on Poverty campaign. [Interjections.]
If it was not for the policies of the apartheid past, we would not be needing programmes like the War on Poverty Campaign. [Interjections.] This programme is targeting especially those of our people who live in squalor in the squatter camps and in the former Bantustans, which were created by apartheid. [Interjections.]
I also want to say to you that the ANC does not only speak to the people and its members from this podium. It engages with the people. We are not a parliamentary party; we have structures. That is why, if you read papers, people speak about the ANC when they identify most of the challenges.
Mr President, you know that when people of South Africa march, they march to the ANC because they know it is the only party that will listen to them. [Applause.] They are just reminding us that they are there and still need our attention. [Interjections.] Therefore, I want to say to you that your questions to the President, your questions to Ministers and Deputy Ministers, and your statements here in the House are not a replacement for interaction with people on the ground.
These parties, Mr President, will have to account to the Speaker about what they are doing with their constituency allowances ... [Interjections.] ... because they don't have an existence in the communities. [Interjections.] So I think it is important that we remember that we are here because of the people. I also want to say to those of our people who used to be with us but decided to go out into the cold - I just want to advise the hon Lekota - to remember the history of the DA. During every local government election the DA goes and forms alliances with smaller parties. What happens to the smaller parties? Ask the former National Party or the New National Party. [Interjections.] Ask ... [Interjections.] ... Ask, yes ... [Interjections.]
Order! Order!
Yes, you formed an alliance with them with the intention to destroy them. [Interjections.] Ask the present Mayor of Cape Town. [Interjections.]
Order, hon members, order!
The Mayor of Cape Town, a party leader in her own right, formed an alliance with the DA in the last election, and they swallowed her up. [Interjections.] I want to caution you. I want to advise you to be careful because you have heard what they say. They say they want only two strong parties. So they want to be able to usurp the votes that the people gave you.
O seke wa digela batho ka go tsaya diboutu tsa bona o ya go dirisana le mokgatlho o o ikaeletseng gore ga o batle go dirisana le batho. [Don't mislead people by taking their votes to work with the party that has an intention of not working together with the people.]
There are times when members of the opposition - in particular the DA - speak from this podium about Cape Town and the Western Cape, they speak as if Cape Town and the Western Cape is not part of South Africa. [Interjections.] This Cape Town is equally part of South Africa. Cape Town is benefiting from our taxes because they are counted within South Africa. [Interjections.] But also remember that the Western Cape was built to where it is by the ANC. [Interjections.]
When you target the ANC for cadre deployment - the Western Cape and Cape Town can tell you horrific stories. What happened to the former municipal manager, Comrade Wallace Mgoqi, when Madam Helen Zille became the mayor? [Interjections.] She removed him. Why did she remove him if it is not cadre deployment? [Interjections.]
So I want to say to you ... [Interjections.] ... yes, there are those like the hon James who said that The Presidency and its budget are big. [Interjections.] It has to be big because now we have a Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, as well as an Administration unit ... [Interjections.] We have the National Planning Commission, NPC, in it; we have the National Youth Development Agency in it ... [Interjections.] The