Hon Chairperson, I want to start by congratulating the hon Minister because today he has successfully managed to fool many people into believing that the Department of Economic Development is actually achieving its mandate of developing the economy and creating jobs.
The hon Minister announced that R1,7 billion has been set aside by the Small Enterprise Finance Agency, Sefa, for youth entrepreneurship. This is simply not true. In the recent presentation in our committee, Sefa has informed us that of that R1,7 billion, only 30% has been set aside for youth-owned enterprises. The proof is in this document, hon Minister.
This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to recover lost ground in an election year to make up for the damage caused by the ANC for not implementing the President's promised youth wage subsidy. Therefore, we had the Minister engaged in a hastily convened Youth Employment Accord signing ceremony which is a nonbinding agreement anyway. It's like a ``pinkie promise'' to create jobs for the youth because if the role-players don't keep their word, the Minister can't really do anything about it and he would just be angry with them for not playing with him.
This is just another public relations exercise aimed at fooling the poor and vulnerable youth who, for the past two decades, have been fed with promises, plans and excuses. We have heard all sorts of feel-good stories about how much of investment is being made in infrastructure development. Yes, we must give credit for that. But most of these projects are not being driven by this department anyway. The Minister simply cuts and pastes and borrows from the successes of other departments and reports these projects as the successes of his department. The Minister and the department have been relegated to a co-ordinating role and he is simply playing with the toys of his Cabinet colleagues, while claiming them as his own.
We all recognise that massive opportunity exists in our country to create much needed jobs by investing more resources in small businesses. This is covered quite extensively in the National Development Plan, NDP, and the New Growth Path.
Is this department really serious about developing small business? The fact that the Industrial Development Corporation, IDC, has set aside about R100 billion for big business and only R1 billion for the development of small businesses is a clear indication that this department and the Minister are not serious about developing small businesses in South Africa.
It comes as no surprise therefore that the latest unemployment figures have now risen to 25% and the promise to create those five million jobs by 2020 will not achieve its target if we continue on this nongrowth path.
The Minister, in his reply, would give us the worn excuse that it is the fault of the global economic environment and it would take some time for us to realise these jobs in the New Growth Path. Hon Minister, neither we nor the South African public buy this story any longer.
This is the department that is struggling for relevance. If Minister Patel wants to become more relevant and develop the economy through more job creation intervention, then this department must identify and create real economic opportunities for the historically disadvantaged and the poor. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]