Madam Chair, the DA opposes this Budget Vote for, inter alia, the following reasons: Firstly, the department's and hence the government's approach to the supply of electricity has been, to say the least, atrocious. Currently the whole country is living with the threat of possible rolling power outages due to a dramatically reduced and below standard reserve margin related to the supply of electricity in this country.
Secondly, the Oilgate saga, where the ANC was paid R11 million via a parastatal, that is PetroSA, has still not been resolved satisfactorily. The Public Protector has indicated that he will consider the possible reopening of this matter. The ANC has to date still to respond by paying the money back to PetroSA.
The third point is the failure by government to take all necessary steps to curb the dramatic rise in the price of fuel by increasing the state levy and other costs which are added to the basic price of fuel instead of reducing the cost of fuel. Government, in fact, contributes to the rising costs by raising its only income from the sale of every litre of fuel, in particular petrol and diesel. The DA opposes the Budget Vote. I thank you.