Thank you, Mr Speaker. Through you, Speaker, the chairman of our committee, the hon Mufamadi, opened his address by thanking the government officials who, as he has indicated, have been with us in the committee all the time, and have given us great assistance. Being in that committee, one would feel that, perhaps, given the fact that one is receiving more assistance one would need to adopt proper deliberations.
I was not in attendance during the public hearings on the Tax Law Amendment Bill, and I chose not to participate in the deliberations. The reason for this is that the last time I participated in the deliberations on the Tax Law Amendment Bill, our committee laboured under the prescripts of a legal opinion received from the parliamentary law advisers that we could not amend the Bill, because it was a Money Bill - in spite of the fact that this Parliament had passed the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act. These anomalies were justified in terms of the fact that the budget office had not yet been established, according to the legal opinion received, when in fact, as a matter of law, the budget office was established, but was not being implemented. This really makes one wonder what our purpose is.
The last time, I moved a few amendments to the last Bill amending our taxation laws. They were declared impermissible, and so they would have been declared impermissible even on this occasion.
We are still not in a situation where our committee - in this Parliament- exercises the measure of deliberation on these tax laws that it should under the Constitution and in line with the expectations of the people of South Africa. What we usually witness is a ping-pong game between large businesses represented by the five major firms of chartered accountants on the one side and Sars on the other.
When Sars agrees that the Bill gets amended, correctly speaking, it is not the Bill itself which gets amended, but the draft Bill. That is another anomaly of this committee. We do not deliberate on a Bill; we deliberate on a draft Bill. Only when the draft Bill is finalised, it is actually introduced and becomes a Bill before Parliament. As a consequence, we are holding public hearings on a Bill that is not before Parliament, but is in fact a Bill in the executive. That is the flip side of the fact that we cannot amend it. The committee does not have either the capability or willingness to amend it. Therefore, the amendments need to be made by government and, because they have to be made by government, the Bill cannot be formally tabled in Parliament until it is finalised by government. Once it is finalised by government, it becomes what we have before us, and, usually, it has not been changed. When our chairman is saying that the committee has amended the Bill, it means the committee has convinced Sars and government to amend the Bill before it is tabled. That is what has happened technically and formally.
Through you, Mr Speaker, to the hon Mufumadi, my friend whom I admire and respect, I will be convinced that your committee can indeed perform the role it is called to perform in terms of the Constitution the day on which your committee passes an amendment that the government does not want. That will be the day on which I see you at odds with your own Minister representing the interests of the people and not that of the sovereign.
Why is that? Through you, Mr Speaker, our chairman in the committee gave us the answer when I expressed a great sense of discomfort with the fact that all the big businesses were represented in our public hearings. Whereas people like me, people like all of you - ordinary taxpayers - were not represented by those who appeared before our committee to make the voice heard of the ordinary person - the ordinary taxpayer.
On that occasion, our chairman reminded me and said, well, hon Ambrosini, we are the representatives of the people. It is for us to make the voice heard of the ordinary people or the ordinary taxpayer. But where is that "heard"?
When we had the opportunity to make a difference, as the hon Harris had just reminded us, by strengthening the role and the capability of those who are representing the ordinary people - those who do not have the big accounting firms behind them - we passed on that possibility, because the government did not want it, and Sars did not give us the green light to do it.
We could have strengthened the role of the tax practitioners in relation to privilege, and having similar qualifications as their counterparts, because having qualified counterparts, helps qualified people to maintain discussions and engage in a productive discourse or process. It is very difficult to talk when there is somebody on the other side who is less qualified than you are. However, we have passed on that opportunity. I thank you. [Time expired.]