Thank you very much, Chairperson. The hon Minister of Trade and Industry said just now at this podium that some in the private sector require the stick. The same can be said, hon Minister, for many of our government departments, because they also require the stick. If one looks at this report and reads this report in detail, there are some very worrying trends that have been highlighted both by the chairperson of the committee and the previous speaker, and we certainly as the IFP share the committee's disappointment that spending patterns have not changed materially since last year.
Spending as a whole still lacks budget allocation, which is an accurate indicator that departments have not taken the President's instructions very seriously. For example, Chairperson, the vacancy rates in the Department of Sport and Recreation is 45%. There are unspent grants. I mean this is something that we should not accept. In areas like HIV/Aids, where we look at the life skills education, we only spent 9.8%, whereas on the mass sport and recreation participation programme only 10.1% was spent. It is no wonder that we have only produced one silver medal, if money cannot be spent when money has been allocated by this government and this Parliament to those departments. The poor spending on capital projects is also very worrying.
When one notes that the Department of Provincial and Local Government was one of the departments that spent the least of the overall budgets, then clearly services to the public at the lowest level of government are not being delivered in the proper manner. Poor spending reflects poor planning and a lack of expertise. It is therefore imperative that the National Treasury takes the necessary and urgent steps to assist poorly performing departments.
The IFP fully supports the committee's recommendations and the amendments that have been proposed by the hon Chairperson, and we also support the recommendation that National Treasury should fast-track the implementation of the performance information framework so that Parliament could gain an even more accurate picture of expenditure by departments. It is pleasing to note that portfolio committees are taking their oversight roles seriously, but they have to be more vigilant in the expenditure by their respective departments. The IFP will support this report. I thank you.