Thank you, hon Deputy Speaker.
Our economy is in a state. Unemployment is stuck at 38% and growth has collapsed to less than 1%. It is not legitimate to keep blaming the global financial crisis for this underperformance. Other developing countries are currently managing between 4% and 6% growth.
It is also not fair, Minister Manuel, to blame quantitative easing for every depreciation in the rand. The hon Manuel says the President must have moved every emerging market currency when he made his now famous remark three weeks ago. Well, on that day, the rand declined by five times more than the JP Morgan emerging markets currency index did. This was on the day when the President was meant to be restoring confidence in the economy.
It is fair to say, however, that the situation would have been much worse if Treasury had conceded to Cosatu's populist demands on fiscal policy in recent years. Therefore, the DA will support this Budget Vote because Treasury has held the fiscal line.
However, if Cosatu continues to block Treasury's efforts to introduce microeconomic reforms for the labour market, if state capacity has not improved so that infrastructure spending can increase to 10% of gross domestic product, GDP, and if growth-killing taxes are increased to fund the system that leaks billions of rands to corruption, then the DA will not be able to support future Treasury Budget Votes. I thank you.