Madam Deputy Speaker, the Presidency budget demonstrated President Jacob Zuma's failure of leadership to take South Africa forward. The President had an opportunity to define his vision to create opportunities and jobs and to give the country hope to overcome despair.
However, the budget was not the stuff of visionary leadership. Instead, Parliament was presented with an unfocused contribution, designed more to mollify the many factions of the governing party than to plot the course forward for the people of South Africa.
Moreover, his mean-spirited response was little more than reflections on the personal and the historical. It contained not a single substantive response to specific policy questions. Rather than pulling the nation together, the President abused and mobilised our troubled history and legacy of racism to open up wounds and spread division.
In real terms, the cost of the Presidency is growing at an ever-increasing rate, yet it is not matched by tangible improvements in job creation or economic growth. While the Presidency has grown in size by 256% since 2003, youth unemployment for those aged 25 and under stands stubbornly at 49%. The President failed to respond to the gathering storm, by treating youth unemployment as a national emergency.
He missed the opportunity to decisively stamp his authority on a weak government by standing up to Cosatu. The President lacks the will to implement the youth wage subsidy. It is South Africa's young people who suffer as a consequence. The DA will not support the Presidency budget vote. [Applause.]