Chairperson, Deputy President, today we are coming to the end of a lengthy budgetary process that was started with the Budget Speech in February when the Minister of Finance announced the budget projections for the financial year. In exercising our oversight functions, Members of Parliament, MPs, in the portfolio committees have checked whether the departments kept their promises of the previous year and spent taxpayers' money wisely. We have highlighted shortcomings in departmental expenditure arising from Treasury, departmental and Auditor-General reports during these hearings, and many shortcomings have been highlighted. We will shortly be voting on each of these department's allocations.
The ACDP believes that we have been more than gracious to many national departments. We have not yet used our powers in terms of the Money Bills Amendment Act to amend these allocations. I think it is a poor excuse to say that it is because there is not yet a budget office that we have not yet used our powers. We could still have exercised our powers. I believe that the time is fast approaching when we will make use of these powers to penalise departments that are underspending or underperforming. They need to have their budgets trimmed because the country is facing budget deficits over the short to medium term, with an increase in state net loan debt levels to reach R1,4 trillion by 2013-14.
Now, do we understand what a trillion rand is? It's a 1 plus 12 noughts. It is a million million rand. It's a thousand billion rand. To quantify this, let me ask you how long it would take to spend a trillion rand if you spent R1 per second. The answer is about 31 000 years. If you spend a million rand per day, it would take you more than 2 000 years to spend that amount. This is a vast sum of money! Surely, under such circumstances, departments that perform inadequately and underperform need to be penalised.
The budget deficit would also be more palatable if government was spending more on the productive side of the economy, as opposed to the consumption side. However, more and more funds are being allocated to current costs such as the public sector's salary bill, which has doubled over the past 12 years from R156 billion to R314 billion. This constitutes 40% of noninterest expenditure, which is, surely, a cause for concern.
Earlier this week the Speaker launched the Oversight and Accountability Model which asserts our role, our oversight role, in enhancing democracy. As part of that role we need to monitor expenditure trends in an ongoing manner. Clearly, this function will be made easier when the parliamentary budget office is up and running, but nothing prevents us from already exercising our powers in terms of the Money Bills Amendment Bill. That having been said, the ACDP will support the Appropriation Bill. I thank you. [Applause.]