Hon House Chair, the NFP notes the report of the Standing Committee on Finance tabled here today. Allow me to commence by expressing our concern that every year Minister, we get a growth forecast which is exaggerated and way off target creating expectations that we are not able to achieve.
The deteriorating picture of low economic growth, failure to achieve targets, increase in the debt and budget deficit is also a matter of concern. Now, it is not only the interest that we are paying, but if you look at the jump in the last two or three years, and what is expected to be by 2022-23, it clearly means that your interest is going to rise by R150 billion, which is ridiculously enormous, which I don't think we can sustain in this country.
As the NFP, we repeatedly have been drawing the attention of this House to the dangers of reaching a fiscal cliff. And every time a Minister or Deputy Minister came here, they gave us the assurance that there is no problem and they started comparing us to other countries. When you came in Minister you gave us this bleak picture and we appreciate the fact that you gave us a true account of what the status is in the country.
Now the question is, we have heard that R360 billion is going to compensation to employees. We are talking about another R240 billion which we estimate that it's lost and which nobody wants to do anything about it because you
are not getting value for money. To add to that, at the moment, we were going to run about R200 billion of interest shortly.
So what does that tell you Minister? Almost R1,1 trillion of your money is going to anything other than delivering services to the people on the ground. So tell me how you are going to be able to achieve economic growth in South Africa, create jobs, and boost this economy, if so much of your resources are going to anything else but delivering services to the people on the ground. So the question that arises is; what are you going to do about it?
Now you are sitting with a situation, you have addressed the issue of South African Airways and you have identified the challenges but there you have the union which is saying that we are not going to accept it, and exactly the same thing is happening with Eskom.
So don't you think that we are in a no-win situation? We are actually in a crisis. And if we are going to continue with the rate that we are continuing, then you can see
the destruction of this country in a very short space of time. Unless we change direction and get the role players to come together and sit at the table and look at what is in the best interest of the country and the people.
If you take South African Airways, you Minister said how much we pay for a bottle of water. The NFP - well - notes the reports. [Time expired.] [Laughter.]