Hon Deputy Speaker, the road to serfdom is based on government control of economic decision-making via central planning. We can see how central planning in South Africa is eroding economic freedoms and, inevitably, political freedoms. Virtually everything is controlled by government: how we are employed or can be employed, how we may conduct business, how we must think, how we must educate and be educated, and finally where we may go or not via e-toll systems.
Die wegkalwing van ons vryhede is problematies genoeg, maar om dit te sien gebeur met die finansiering van ons eie geld is te veel om net gade te slaan. Daarom gebruik die VF Plus hierdie geleentheid, nie om kommentaar te lewer op die tegniese veranderinge vervat in die string belastingwette nie, maar om die ongeduld van die belastingbetaler te verwoord om 'n politieke stelsel te bly finansier wat inherente vryhede ondermyn. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[The erosion of our freedoms is problematic enough, but to see this happening with financing from our own money is too much simply to observe. That is why the FF Plus is using this opportunity not to make comment on the technical changes contained in the string of tax laws, but to give expression to the impatience of the taxpayer in continuing to finance a political system that undermines inherent freedoms.]
The Bills contemplated today form part of a system designed to extract the maximum amount from the pockets of the average person, without ensuring any substantial form of quid pro quo from government. The system is highly effective and the average person is compelled to comply, against the risk of criminal sanction. Yet, if we have regard to the system of service delivery by government, there is no criminal sanction that really compels the Public Service to provide quality services. So what we have here is a system designed to put you in jail if you do not pay for the services government is constitutionally obliged to deliver, but where the government and its servants get away scot-free if poor or no services are delivered. No one in government will go to jail, and the height of accountability is a slap on the wrist and the redeployment of the offending public servant to a more lucrative position, subject to the requirement, of course, that the public servant is an ANC-member, better known as a "cadre".
It is this lack of accountability that allows the ANC to say that service delivery protests are not to be taken seriously and do not constitute evidence of unhappy people. It is this system, which allows for cadre- deployment via the instrument of affirmative action, that has virtually destroyed the state's ability to deliver. And this is not something that only we are saying. It is a fact supported by the Public Service Commission.
Die individuele belastingbetaler dra tans, volgens die Tesourie, 34,5% van die belastinglas in Suid-Afrika. Maatskappye se belastinglas is tanend. Dit beteken die ekonomie groei nie en die beleidstukke van die regering werk nie. Ons is dus nou by 'n vurk in die pad.
Indien belastingbetalers, veral uit minderheidsgemeenskappe, nie vinnig beter behandel word nie, sal hulle stelselmatig vanself uit die stelsel begin klim. Dankie, Speaker. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[The taxpayer as an individual, according to the Treasury, carries 34,5% of the tax burden in South Africa. The tax burden of companies is dwindling. This means that the economy is not growing and that the policies of the government are not working. So we are now at a fork in the road.
If taxpayers, particularly from minority communities, do not rapidly receive better treatment, they will systematically start climbing out of the system of their own accord. Thank you, Speaker.]