Hon Chairperson, hon members of the executive, Members of Parliament and comrades, as you have heard, the Standing Committee on Appropriations unanimously supported the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill which is before us for debate. To simplify a complex and technical process, a budget is the alignment of figures with policy within a legislative framework. It is this framework that specifies the process and procedures of how the budget is to be passed and allocated. Various mechanisms are legislated regarding how it is to be allocated and ultimately accounted for.
According to Jeremy Heimans, the budget is the most important economic policy tool of government and provides a comprehensive statement of the nation's priorities. Heimans adds that, as the representative of the people, Parliament is the appropriate place to ensure that the budget best matches the nation's developmental priorities within available resources.
It is in the application of the various budgets that we as legislators are required to apply our minds to evaluating the optimal utilisation of state resources in achieving the national developmental agenda. The developmental state leads in the definition of a common national agenda.
The national agenda set by the developmental state is a product of a broad and extensive consultation with society. Our priorities are a product of inputs from the public and a scientific analysis of the obligations imposed by the challenges of the epoch on the state and its people.
The Constitution does not only provide for prohibitive obligations but imperative ones. The state must protect and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights - socioeconomic rights not excluded.
The developmental state's structures and systems facilitate the realisation of the set agenda. Measures must not only be rationally linked to the purpose they are intended to realise but there must also be a reasonable likelihood that such measures will eventually lead to the achievement of the said purpose.
Legal instruments regulating powers and relations of the spheres of government must enhance meaningful co-operation among the said structures. There should be neither duplication of duties nor parallel functions where there is a convergence of interests. The means must be proportionate to the ends of poverty eradication, the elimination of inequalities and the obliteration of unemployment.
We must never undermine the progress that this government has made in the past 17 years of democracy. Being the progressive government that we are, we must provide meaningful responses to the glaring challenges that we face. Now is an appropriate time to reflect on a number of areas that may inhibit the implementation of national policies across all spheres of government.
Chapter 3 of the Constitution, dealing with co-operative governance, states that the national, provincial and local spheres are distinctive, independent and interrelated. It requires the spheres to provide effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government for the Republic as a whole. It is clear from the intention of these provisions that the drafters of the Constitution envisaged the various spheres' working together to achieve the national agenda, while recognising the distinct and separate roles of each sphere.
The Division of Revenue Act allocates revenue raised nationally among the three spheres of government. The provincial and local spheres are allocated their share of national revenue by virtue of transfers and grants. The provinces' equitable share is crafted into a provincial budget in the form of an appropriation Bill and this is subjected to provincial legislative processes prior to being enacted.
There are a number of government co-ordinating structures established at the national level that facilitate the alignment of the national budget to achieve national priorities by all spheres of government. These structures have the ability to influence the allocation of funds broadly in meeting the national policy objectives. However, their influence is limited in respect of aligning specific allocations with specific objectives pertaining to the national policies within a provincial budget. This may result in the national and provincial departments with concurrent competencies not utilising the revenue raised nationally to effect policy implementation in an integrated and co-ordinated manner. The net result is that service delivery is compromised and the state does not extract from the fiscus the optimum utilisation of its resources.
Besides relying on the provisions of co-operative government, the national sphere of government has no power over provincial departments other than to persuade provincial government to ensure that national policy is implemented at a provincial level. [Interjections.]
You guys really are missing Mr Ellis. You have to professionalise, you know! Amateurs! [Interjections.]
Compounding the problems associated with implementing a seamless system of government between the national and provincial spheres, both horizontally and vertically, within and between the spheres, is Chapter 5 of the Public Finance Management Act.
This chapter sets out the functions and responsibilities of accounting officers pertaining to their roles within departments or constitutional institutions. These functions and responsibilities are contractually specific to the department or the constitutional institution that the accounting officer is employed by. In effect, this contract-specific employment of accounting officers creates a measure of autonomy and independence. This results in entrenching a silo- based approach to governance and leads to a fragmentation of service delivery. No central administrative authority is currently empowered to co- ordinate any integration across and between the spheres of government. Government relies on accounting officers embracing the letter and spirit of co-operative governance to implement government policies in a unified and co-ordinated manner, leaving much to chance.
Section 100 of the Constitution provides that when provinces cannot or do not fulfil an executive obligation in terms of the Constitution or legislation, the national executive may intervene by taking appropriate steps to ensure fulfilment of that obligation. This provision of the Constitution is utilised as a means of last resort by national government to maintain essential national standards or meet established minimum standards for the rendering of services. In no way can section 100 be seen or utilised as a mechanism in co-ordinating the day-to-day implementation of national policy at the provincial level.
In a unitary state, all other government bodies are subject to the authority exercised by the national government bodies. [Interjections.] Clearly, you don't respect your Constitution. You should read it. [Interjections.]