Thank you very much. I don't think there's a need for additional legislation. It's a given that if you consume a certain service you must pay. Government departments will procure a
service, even from small businesses. They will procure a service, the service will be rendered and they don't pay.
I thought that ... Where I come from, Mpumalanga used to pay when I was premier. It used to pay every invoice that they received within 10 days. I ensured ... I wanted to understand what makes it difficult to pay an invoice when you receive it. Why should you wait for 30 days? You received the service.
Here is a woman providing catering to you. You have your meeting. You must wait for 30 days to pay this woman? No! The answer is no. You received the service and all the papers are there that show you received the service. Why are you not paying?
For every service that you procure you must know that you have the money ... the money is budgeted for. You can't look for a service, a service provider will come and provide the service to you, yet you don't have the money. This is the problem with our municipalities; this is the problem with our government departments. They go out there and procure a service and they don't have the money. They wait for a period of adjustment, where they will adjust and then they find the money to pay. By that time it's been six months. By that time the small business is dead. No, no, there's no additional ...
It's just that those who are responsible must stand up and make it a point that the law is enforced. It's possible. It's possible.
An invoice will be submitted ... will lie on the table for 90 days as if there's no manager that must ensure that this invoice is processed. Someone is waiting. A small businessperson is waiting. He's working very hard to provide this service and you're not paying. So, some of our shortcomings ... some of our problems and challenges that we are facing are made by ourselves.
In government where I am now with my colleagues, I'm going to remind them. I'm going to request ... to know all the people that they owe, and when they are going to pay them, so that, as much as we say we want to see this economy growing, we must ensure that those that are doing business with government are paid, because if we don't do that we are destroying the very same people that we say we want to support. We are destroying jobs and we are destroying the economy by not paying people that are working hard to grow this economy.
On the side of municipalities, they are going to be assisted to manage their finances very well. We must deal with corruption so that every cent that they have is utilised correctly. Yes, we
acknowledge the fact that they are owed but when they get that money it must be used correctly. [Applause.]