Madam Deputy Speaker, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, this Budget speaks to the ongoing efforts to realise the goals and objectives the ANC arrives at through its deep relationship with the people of South Africa.
It is this deep relationship that led them to give us a resounding mandate during the last elections. We will return during the month of April to the fourth elections confident that the people will say: "Difficult as the journey has been to meet our needs, you've done your best under the circumstances. Here is more - go back and continue the good work."
One of the difficult areas on this journey has been the navigation of the transformation of local government. Part of this, to make a slight detour, is what people have been talking about: that the global crisis we are confronted with manifests itself in the local state as well. So, our responses at that level have meaning for the local state.
To cite three examples of this crisis, as seen by a commentator: firstly, this crisis manifests itself in the demise of unilateralism; secondly, in climate change and resource abuse and misuse; and, thirdly, the crisis ...
Let me come back to this; it's crucial. For example, the crisis of resources and the projected water shortage in our country has important significance in our cities and towns. The responses to this have crucial meanings.
The green profiling of the budget has serious implications for our environmental protection and regeneration initiatives, with important implications on the conduct of the local state. The crisis of unilateralism means that, even at a local level, the continued deep consultation and involvement of people in finding a solution is an important response as it is, equally, valid at the local level.
Let me use an interesting study conducted by Idasa. When I last checked, it was not a subcommittee of the ANC. It's an independent institute. Its publication: What does the Local Governance Barometer tell us? is a study of local government. Idasa studied 16 municipalities around the country.
In their conclusions they make interesting observations: that municipalities are finding it difficult to juggle, firstly, pressure from citizens, from auditors who, rightfully, demand clean accounts and effective and efficient use of public money, from the Department of Provincial and Local Government and provinces and other sector departments who shift, or often offload, more and more tasks to the local level without providing additional financial resources and demanding fast results and evidence of success.
The study also talks about local politicians whose interests often conflict with long-term development targets defined in the integrated development plans. These are conclusions of this study. We have responses to these issues. I think researchers must research. But here is a more fascinating one, and I quote:
Despite the fact that local government in South Africa has improved its service delivery substantively over the past 10 years at an unprecedented pace and extent hardly seen anywhere else in the world, most of the municipal councils face a widening gap between demand and the supply of services.
In other words, it confirms the view that we are often victims of our own success on the one hand. On the other hand, it also says this gap between demand and supply of services has often been responsible for conflict in these areas. This is an important point that we have to be mindful of. So, as a broad stroke of response to these issues of problems at a local level, fast pace of service delivery unmatched anywhere in the world has an underlying unfortunate result in that as people see progress around their areas, their impatience also grows. It creates the ability to respond to these issues with appropriate political skill.
Some of our initiatives and responses are crucial for that reason - the huge resources that have been growing and going into local government. For example, the R11,3 billion that is aimed at the 2010 infrastructure with key significance for those cities, the urban and rural dynamic that will benefit from these resources, the impact of migration in these areas and the EPWP, the input in capacity development, as well as access to resources - because you are dealing with cross-cutting issues - are all important responses to the problems that we have identified.
I also believe that these resources have to meet the identified problems, but must also add and increase the pace of delivery of services. Comrade Minister, the implications of these have partly been responded to.
Let me refer to the vision which is contained in the White Paper on Local Government, which remains valid today, that local government must be developmental, with this being defined as meaning a government that works with local people to find sustainable solutions to their problems.
In fact, this vision is precisely the answer to what the ANC considers the appropriate response to our issues, that is, dealing with the problems of the local state of the communities where they live with their active involvement in a dynamic manner. That the study of Idasa's identifies this area of involvement of people as a problem is precisely the reason the ANC has identified it as an area of intervention.
Our overall strategy for the next decade, as identified in our strategy and tactics that we must build a developmental state, is informed by this perspective and it's a direct rejection of the DA's kind of politics. We expect the state to have the capacity to intervene in the economy, in the interest of higher growth and sustainable development, effecting sustainable programmes that address the challenges of unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment with the requisite emphasis on vulnerable groups; and mobilising the people as a whole, especially the poor, to act as their own liberators through participatory and representative democracy.
This is the basis for why we believe the growing resource allocation to local government and to the state as a whole is an important part of evolving into a developmental state.
The expansionary nature of the Budget, limited as it is; perhaps, this year, but growing in significance through the 3,8% budget deficit, is an investment in the strategic areas that will see what I call here both a defensive and an offensive strategy. In other words, it is investing in areas that will ensure the satisfaction of the services of the people while also ensuring that South Africa remains cushioned against the global economic crisis.
There is no doubt that what we consider to be the challenge of the next coming decade is not only the proper and effective management of the resources that we generate in this country, but also equally the effective involvement of local people to deal with their problems in a sustainable manner.
It is for this reason that the exemplary nature of the department of Treasury in styling itself as green, but also producing and giving resources for the rest of the country to become green, is an exemplary model of how to conduct ourselves. Parliament itself has that responsibility to conduct itself as a green institution, as have all departments. But this is also most important in our communities.
The poor are often the ones who suffer from environmental degradation and lack of protection. Therefore, going this route is not only for the benefit of posterity, but in the immediate time, for the protection of the poor and the vulnerable. For that reason we have no hesitation in saying that despite the current difficulties in local government, the progress that is even identified by outside independent observers is an important indication that going forward we have laid a sound foundation on which to build even more in the tradition of the ANC and inspired by the Freedom Charter. I thank you. [Applause.]