Hon Speaker, I have been requested by some local businesspeople who have been running spaza shops in the townships for many years to raise their concerns with the hon President. While they claim that they are not opposed to competition by foreign businessmen, they say the competition is unfair as the well-organised and trained foreigners are heavily subsidised and bankrolled by either business cartels or the governments they came from, while their own government, they say, has neglected them.
They claim that in almost all townships and villages, local businesses have been taken over by foreigners who are bankrolled. They say what upsets them is that local black people in townships used to own small businesses during apartheid, but under a democratic government that should be helping them to grow and prosper, they are losing everything.
The Greater Gauteng Business Forum's chairman for the Tshwane region is reported to have said, and I quote:
They are here to destroy local business, and people, particularly local shop owners, are boiling with anger. If nothing is done about this, there will be war.
I, therefore, on behalf of the ACDP that wants peace and prosperity for all, implore the President to urgently look into these concerns and the possibility of training and subsidising local entrepreneurs in the townships who are fast losing their businesses. This, we believe, will avert what some threaten will be an economic war, and not xenophobic attacks.
Government should be seen to support black economic empowerment at the grass roots by focusing on small businesses, particularly spaza shops that are under siege.
As proof that they have been trying to address their concerns with government, they gave me a copy of a memorandum of demands and concerns that was addressed and handed over to the office of the Premier of Gauteng, which, they claim, has done nothing about it.
I trust and hope that these threats will not be taken lightly by government, and that the President will meet these township men and women who are angry because of what they claim is unfair competition that has cost them their businesses and livelihood.
Regarding Vote No 1, the ACDP wants to know whether the President has issued an official proclamation for the Special Investigating Unit, SIU, to start the investigation into alleged corruption in the Nkandla scandal. The ACDP also wants to know why the report on what really happened was classified and kept away from all Members of Parliament, except from those serving in the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
The fact that both the Minister of Public Works and his Deputy have conceded that procurement procedures have been flouted, and that there were a number of irregularities with regard to the appointment of service providers and procurement of goods and services, when more than R206 million was spent on upgrading the President's private Nkandla residence, should have convinced government that an investigation by the SIU should commence immediately. To date, that has not happened. We are not convinced that there is no cover-up, despite attempts to assure the public otherwise.
The ACDP will not support Budget Vote No 1 for a number of reasons. One of them is the lack of transparency and accountability, particularly regarding the upgrading of ... [Time expired.] [Applause.]