House Chairperson, hon Deputy Minister, special delegates and hon members in the House, I just want to say that the preamble to our Constitution indicates that the nation adopted the Constitution through its freely elected representatives as the supreme law of the Republic to improve the quality of life of all citizens. The same Constitution also obligates the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources to achieve the progressive realisation of the rights that are in the Bill of Rights. Now, the Division of Revenue Bill 2012 is actually informed by this obligation to the state.

There are only three main changes when comparing the Division of Revenue Bill 2012 with the Division of Revenue Act of 2011. These changes are in relation to the Expanded Public Works Programme, EPWP, grant, which has been reconfigured because of the slow uptake. The in-year calculations for incentive purposes will fall away. A new subsection is added to section 15 to provide for consultation with Parliament and a new section 13 is added to deal with anticorruption conditions, which are placed on HODs where there are conditional grants that pertain to infrastructure.

In total, conditional grant allocations amounting to R105,859 billion have been made available in the Division of Revenue Bill for the 2012-13 Financial year. Remember that this amount is over and above the equitable share allocations to the order of R346,930 billion for the same year and is, of course, exclusive of fuel levy sharing.

We should note that these conditional grant allocations also include an amount of some R4,4 billion, which was added for policy priorities to provinces for the financial year 2012-13. In that amount there is a new grant to fund the piloting of the National Health Insurance in 10 district health authorities. Some R450 million is allocated over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, for the refurbishment and upgrading of nursing colleges; R1,2 billion for the repair of flood damage to infrastructure; R1,1 billion for a comprehensive HIV/Aids programme to expand the provision of treatment and prevention programmes; R718 million for hospital revitalisation; R900 million for national tertiary services; R166 million for FET colleges; and R1,1 billion to upgrade informal settlements. An amount of R3,1 billion was added to local government conditional grants and R2,4 billion was added in the form of indirect transfers.

I have just raised matters relating to the financial resources that are made available for the purpose of improving the lives of our citizens within available financial resources. Indications are clear that there is a progressive increase in these allocations. The state is doing its best to ensure that activities aimed at improving the lives of our people are funded. However, through the oversight activities that we carry out in the form of public hearings on expenditure on these grants as well as oversight visits in provinces and local municipalities, certain experiences are encountered, which we need to raise sharply.

Provinces and municipalities in general are crying out for more resources to be made available for them to fulfil their functions and mandates. As much as we agree that we will never have enough for the work that lies before provincial departments and municipalities, there are certain tendencies that point in the direction that says we have adequate financial resources in circulation. However, departments and municipalities are failing in their numbers to spend monies allocated to them annually. Their audit outcomes reflect significant wasteful and fruitless expenditure and record significant amounts of unaccounted-for financial resources lost through fraud and corruption.

With this in mind it is difficult to understand any argument claiming a shortage of funds. Yes, there are exceptional departments and municipalities who genuinely require more help but they are in the minority. The issue here is that all of us charged with oversight responsibilities - from the executives, legislatures, audit committees, internal auditors, Scopa and its versions at subnational level, to the Auditor-General - should try by all means to ensure that administrations really use the resources provided for their intended purposes. These abuse of state resources without accountability should come to an end. Those who cry for more money should prove their prudent utilisation and financial discipline of the current resources made available to them.

We should know that conditional grants are there to enforce the attainment of national objectives, which will not be achieved if there are no forceful measures. Therefore the violations of these conditions amount to undermining the national priorities. We therefore call upon receiving departments and municipalities to ensure compliance without fail. Provincial Treasuries and municipal chief financial officers should take their rightful positions to curb noncompliance and abuse. All officials involved in fraud and corruption should be taken to task by security agencies. Managers and political heads who have responsibility and accountability in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act, MFMA, Public Finance Management Act, PFMA, and relevant legislation should be called to account for nonaction where there is a blatant violation of or noncompliance with legislation and conditions specific to the myriad grants that are made available. Maybe we should declare 2012 the year of the Hawks, Special Investigating Unit, SIU, the Public Protector, police and Asset Forfeiture Unit on all who have defrauded the state to date.

In the name of Operation Clean Audit 2014, we should commit ourselves from today, saying, "Let us account for all the monies made available to us. Let us use all the monies for their intended purposes. There shall be no wasteful or fruitless expenditure. We shall be transparent in dealing with public funds and exercise financial management discipline. Relevant heads shall deal decisively with corrupt and fraudulent elements in the value chain." I thank you. [Applause.]