Chairperson, on the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement and indeed on the Adjustments Appropriation Bill, I want to say that poverty is likely to be the lot of millions in our country for many years if we continue to design our economic policy and national Budgets as if only the rich matter.
The SA Institute of Race Relations' research has now confirmed what the PAC has been saying for years, which is that absolute poverty in South Africa is rising and not going down. The number of people living on less than R7 a day has more than doubled in the last 10 years. This is against the background of the country's booming economy since 1994. The supposedly booming economy has not translated into jobs or a reduction of poverty. It is clear that relying on growth alone will not achieve that target of halving unemployment or poverty by 2014.
What is dignified about living on a child's grant? Why is it less humiliating to beg at the traffic lights or scavenge on a rubbish site? This calls for a national distribution of wealth strategy that closes the widening gap between the rich and the poor. What our country demands today is the equitable sharing of this land and its riches.
Plutocracy is fast replacing democracy that could pave the way to economic emancipation of the majority of the population. Poverty is the mother of revolutions, and it should not be allowed to grow. The wide gap between the rich and the poor, which is growing, must be arrested. South Africa deserves a budget and an economic policy which responds to the needs of the poor. This budget is not seriously taking into consideration the plight of the poor. Much more must be done. Nevertheless, the PAC supports this Budget.