Chairperson, Deputy Ministers, MEC, comrades and friends, in my previous life I used to recruit others. I myself was never really recruited. I appreciate being recruited sometimes. But I do not want people to distort what I say in meetings.
I really liked the hon Robertson's input, except for one issue - which was about accreditation. I think the hon Robertson will know that the previous Division of Revenue Bill used that clause of accreditation. However, we need to ask ourselves whether that clause of accreditation has really assisted us in terms of what we wanted to achieve there, whether it has delivered or not. That is, if we are suggesting that it must come back. I just want to refer the hon member to some of the clauses that take care of this. Clause 10(6) of the Division of Revenue Bill says the National Transferring Officer must evaluate the performance of programmes funded or partially funded by allocation and submit such evaluations to National Treasury - that is in respect of the province four months after the end of the financial year, and in respect of the municipalities. It also says in clause 11(3) that the receiving officer in a province must submit, as part of the report required in terms of section 44(4)(c) of the Public Finance Management Act, reports to the relevant provincial treasury on spending and performance against programmes.
Clause 12(2) says a report by a province in terms of subsection 1(a) must set out for that month and for that financial year up to the end of that month the amount received by the province, the amount of funds stopped or withheld from the province and the actual expenditure by the province in respect of a Schedule 5 allocation.
Let us consider clause 39, which is about the planning. It says from October the receiving officer of an infrastructure grant to provinces must, by 30 June 2008, submit detailed infrastructural plans in a format determined by National Treasury to the provincial treasury. There is no need for us to panic about the fact that the particular clause is in there. There are checks and balances. This one will say if a municipality or an entity has to receive these funds it must produce proof that it can spend and that it has expended those funds. In this case, that clause did not really assist us. That is why, for us, it is not really an issue.
Hon Mrs Mchunu is saying that in the rural areas there is a great need for cellular phones. Well, I think it is a good thing that people should have cellular phones. I think we do applaud her. However, we are not looking at the other side. We have the cellular phones and there are no Telkom landlines in those rural areas which do not have access to computer and other things. In other words, we are encouraging continued deprivation of the rural communities of access to computers. I am not sure if that is what we want to support here, but surely the ANC will not support the continued deprivation of our communities in the rural areas.
The MEC says the people in the rural areas must have the same access to resources as those people in the urban areas who have access to both cellular phones and landlines. I think that is the problem which some of us do not look at in its broader context.
What I would like to add is that municipalities are at the coalface of service delivery. The community survey released by Statistics South Africa in October 2007 indicated that 89% of households had access to water from the end of February 2007 as compared to only 62% in 1994. Another 89% today have access to sanitation, that was from the end of February 2007, as compared to only 50% in 1994, whereas at the end of February 2007 we were speaking of 87% which had access. Again, 80% also have access to electricity today as compared to 51% in 1999.
Chairperson, before you tell me that my time has expired, it is important to indicate that the ANC supports this Bill, and would like to urge this House to support it in order to ensure that our people in the rural areas also have access to quality service delivery. I thank you.