House Chairperson, the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill seeks to align state spending with the nation's priorities. It is about determining equitable slices of the revenue pie for national, provincial and local departments to maximise the impact of state spending on improving the lives of the people and the environment in which they live. In a constraint economy, once budget divisions are agreed upon, the next step is to ensure that each rand allocated is appropriately spent.
The number one tool for holding those who hold the pearls strings at all levels of government accountable is transparency. The more government business is open to scrutiny, the less space for misspending and corruption. Just earlier, the Auditor-General announced that South Africa's national and provincial government has an irregular expenditure that has grown to R62 billion from R51 billion, with further material losses of R2,8 billion.
With this disappointing audit results, it is time to stop talking and institute better systems of accountability and transparency. Such systems help us emerge stronger from our economic crisis and contribute to avoiding recurrences in future. Good calls on the department to put systems in place to prevent and detect corruption. This can be done by putting in reactive controls, corrective controls, internal prevention controls and supply chain management controls.
We talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and therefore we must use technologies like blockchain in supply chain management systems. Good also calls on government departments to implement contract and consequence management systems. Those responsible for irregular expenditure must face the consequences for their actions and must be held accountable. Good pleads with government department to ensure that there is broad agreement with regard to where and how money should be spent, and the principles of advance economic social environmental and spatial justice should underpin all actual spending. Good supports the municipalities infrastructure grant, the National Health Insurance indirect grant and the school infrastructure backlog grant, amongst others. In conclusion, I would like to say that Good supports the Bill. Thank you.
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