Chairperson, the Western Cape supports the Division of Revenue Bill, 2008. Two issues were dealt with in the report to the NCOP, but seemingly it was misunderstood and I will address it here and now. Both these issues have since been discussed with the National Treasury and were more or less resolved.
Firstly, the Bill does not provide provinces with the powers to withhold provincial transfers to municipalities if a municipality does not comply with the conditions of the transfer, similar to what is provided for at a national level in clause 25 of the Bill.
Provinces could thus not stop allocations to municipalities in the event of a major breach of the conditions of a transfer, or when a municipality does not spend the money. In the absence of a legislative framework there were no measures enabling provinces to withhold and possibly reallocate these funds. Underspending, which constitutes nondelivery of services, could thus not adequately be addressed.
Hon members, we don't want to take away the autonomy of local municipalities - that is not the idea. But, we are going to do what the hon chairperson of the committee says we must do, align our spending so that we don't build a clinic and then not fix the road, we should not work in silos in terms of our departments, and in terms of local municipalities and the provinces. We would have the tools to actually hold municipalities accountable in the same way that National Treasury holds the provinces accountable and every department holds us accountable. This is public finance: It does not belong to any party or any individual but to the people that we want to serve - that is what we are trying to do.
We are trying to negate the possibility of nondelivery of services. The Western Cape has included the authority to withhold provincial transfers to municipalities in our Western Cape Appropriation Bill 2008, similar to the clauses in the Division of Revenue Bill. National Treasury has subsequently indicated that they are in agreement with this inclusion in the Appropriation Act of the province.
Our second recommendation is related to clause 28, and that was the unspent conditional allocations. Given the fact that the unspent cash pertaining to these allocations are normally available within the provincial revenue funds, and in order to streamline the roll-over approval and subsequent timely spending processes within provinces, it was recommended that clause 28 be amended to enable provincial treasuries to approve such roll-overs.
A further proposal was made that the uncommitted, unspent, conditional allocations be surrendered to the National Revenue Fund by 31 August each year, one month after the Auditor-General has completed its audit.
It is noted that the timeframes for processing the Bill is perhaps too advanced to consider such amendments and thus the Western Cape proposes to address the unspent conditional allocations clause at a technical level through the Technical Committee on Finance with regard to the implementation of this particular clause.
The national Minister of Finance, Mr Manuel always asks the question: What does this Budget buy? The Western Cape has had R24 billion to spend during this financial year. We've managed to spend R1,4 and R1,5 billion respectively, in addition, on health and education. We managed to increase the housing budget to R1,2 billion.
I can go on and tell you that we have managed to ensure that R275 million will be spent on early childhood development. I can tell you that the budget has shifted from 74% for health, social service and education and to 26% on all the other sectors. But that is not the point - it is not what this budget buys but it is the quality of spending.
We really have to collectively think about the quality of the spending we have within our communities, whether it is the quality spending on housing or education. We are spending a large sum of money - we spent R9 billion in our province on education. The province does have a relatively good education plan and good outcomes in terms of education. But, is that for all the students and peoples of the Western Cape? Are ordinary black, girl- children and rural children getting the same kind of education that we get in the leafy suburbs? And for me that is a big question. How do we spend that money equitably? What are the resources that we use to make sure that we monitor and evaluate how we spend that money?
So, it is not about the fact that we increased the housing budget but how we are spending that budget. What is the relationship between the largest municipality in the Western Cape and the provincial government to making sure that we spend collectively and that not everything becomes a political issue?
I wanted to come here today and say that I support the hon member Robinson. You see, hon members, the difficulty for me is the issue of capacity. It does not just rest with the provinces, it also rests with the municipalities. In fact, we had a situation on 28 February this year, where 21% was spent on capital budget to buy in the city and 43% or 44% was spent on the operating budget. [Interjections.]
We may easily politicise this thing but I think the big issue is, how do we make sure that we strengthen the levels and the spheres of government so that we are able to impact on our people's lives efficiently and effectively as it should be a quality delivery.
So, it is evident that our concerns have been addressed in the one instance and can be addressed at a technical level in the other. For this reason, the Western Cape supports the Division of Revenue Bill.
From our side in the Western Cape, I want to express our absolute thanks to the Minister and the Deputy Minister for the Treasury staff at a national level - just for being able to hold hands and trying to make it better for every one in our provinces.
The chairperson of the select committee cannot believe how terrified we are of him in the provinces. [Laughter.] I like it. When we have to come to the select committee, we scatter; the departments talk to me and phone me late at night, before they have to come here. The point I am making is that unless our institutions are as effective as that we will never do the things that we are expected to do, that is, to provide a better quality of life for our people. Thank you. [Applause.]