Deputy Speaker, I hate to give hon Gelderblom a self- fulfilling prophesy, but I am indeed slightly pessimistic about our so- called "Garden of Eden". We have an incredibly beautiful country, but unfortunately politically, hon Gelderblom, there are too many snakes in our "Garden of Eden". [Interjections.]
The Minister of Finance's Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement which we are debating today was full of welcome rhetoric, but it was not nearly bold enough in tackling our serious economic problems.
There are more than a million South Africans unemployed today than there were on the day that President Jacob Zuma took office.
We are also beset by lacklustre economic growth. In 2011 we were growing at 3,5% - that is after the global financial crisis, hon Minister. This year, however, we are growing at only 2%. We are being left behind by other developing countries. Members have heard me say the following, and let me remind them of it. Countries like Chile, Malaysia and Turkey which share many of our characteristics, are growing at twice the rate that we are in the same global economy.
This shows that the National Treasury is simply wrong when it blames global circumstances for our slow growth. Instead, we have to look at our domestic issues, especially the recent ones - what the Minister of Finance calls "labour disputes, electricity shortages and other supply-side disruptions".
The Minister identifies these as our problems, but he announces no significant measures from the NDP to address them. He points out what the problems are, but he doesn't table any of the actual new measures that we have all read about in the National Development Plan to tackle them. That plan would help, but far too few of the proposals in it show up in this Budget statement. The NDP talks about regulatory reform, but there is nothing in this Budget Statement. It talks about the removal of trade barriers, but there is nothing in this Budget Statement. Government has not managed to introduce anything like this since the NDP was adopted by this House.
We do welcome the cut in ministerial perks, of course. It is a pity that that does not take place immediately, rather than next year, because these government departments have already increased spending on items like accommodation, catering and entertainment by somewhere between 6% and 10% this year alone. These increases constrain, or rather compromise, the Minister of Finance's ability to limit spending to 2% increases.
The elephant in the room is how many of these spending cuts apply to the President. When I asked the Finance Minister in a committee meeting, he neatly dodged the question. [Interjections.] When we asked the President in the House yesterday, he dodged the question. [Interjections.] The best way to cut ministerial perks to tighten the belts of government leaders is to cut the R200 million that we are spending on the President's private home in Nkandla and to cancel the somewhere between R2 billion and R2,5 billion that we put on the table to procure VIP jets. That is where the big numbers are, hon Minister.
The chairperson of the Standing Committee on Finance did mention our twin deficits, the other area where the Budget falls short. However, like the Minister of Finance, he said nothing on how to tackle the shortfalls. The current account deficit is huge, because we do not make enough, and we do not export enough.
We can fix it by tackling the competitiveness of South Africa's economy. We can also build the infrastructure that we say we will. We underspent on infrastructure by 22%, based on the figures that the Minister of Finance announces every year. We can boost competitiveness by opening up trade with Africa. In 2011 we were the 10th biggest exporter to the rest of our continent. Countries like Spain, Holland and Korea exported more than us.
We can also constrain administered prices. The year before last the administered prices went up by over 10% - these are prices that government says. On a fiscal deficit, we are suffering because lower growth is hammering tax revenue, and we cannot constrain spending on the big numbers by the state.
So the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries gave us a good view inside Cabinet when he said the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. It is a pity that Ministers Nzimande, Cronin and Patel are not here to tell us what they think about government's National Development Plan, which is meant to be implemented by all Ministers.
We can also end handouts to state-owned enterprises like SA Airways, and we can reform labour bargaining arrangements. These ideas would help us tackle our twin deficits. However, they were not in the Budget Statement.
On the matter of the Goldman Sachs report, which the chair raised, he neglected to mention that that report, shows that unemployment has increased by 5,3% in the past 20 years. When the ANC took over, unemployment was 5% lower; it is now higher. That is the legacy of this government. Thank you. [Applause.] [Time expired.]