Hon Chairperson, whilst these budgets and allocations are determined by the current figures, we have to be mindful that the cost of living is going to increase through a number of factors. The electricity and petrol hikes will indeed add to this challenge. We have to apportion a certain amount of the monies for salary adjustments for the public sector.
In an economy where the cost of living is increasing, we don't want to engage in any social unrest. As far as possible, government must alleviate any form of unrest and make appropriate adjustments, given the real costs of living.
The MF welcomes the allocation to education. Yes, it is a very good thing to invest in our children and the infrastructure. However, we must ensure returns on our investments, hence monitoring is crucial.
Government's drive to ensure equality in the system is gratifying. However, we must be mindful that in the past three years there was no fundamental increase with regard to providing schools with educators. There seems to be a good percentage of unqualified and underqualified educators in the system and government must be mindful that budgeting takes place with this knowledge and background taken into account. The drive to employ qualified teachers with higher salary packages is welcomed. We must endeavour to improve learners' and educators' norms and standards.
The MF believes that this matter has not been adequately catered for in the current Budget and it is unlikely to be addressed. If we are to eradicate the triple challenge, alignment to the National Development Plan, NDP, is fundamental and it begins with these budgets and allocations.
Whilst Social Development gets the largest allocation, we must speed up job creation and ensure that people become economically active instead of depending on the state. Our social development programmes cannot always be based on taxation.
We applaud the initiatives for sorting out issues relating to grants, etc. Pensioners have huge families with many children to feed and take to school and many of them do not have houses with water and electricity. Yes, indeed, we have never built the number of houses we promised the poor.
Let us be mindful of our debt service costs. Perhaps we should also review our focus on fiscal discipline and diligence in order to ensure that in a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework cycle, we spend less on debt service costs and more on actual delivery that will change the lives of our people.
We must ensure that municipalities have the capacity, that the local government equitable share revised formula is fully supported, that allocations are spent on worthwhile infrastructure, and that there is provision for free basic services in order to eliminate service delivery protests.
Smaller municipalities experience difficulties restoring flood-damaged infrastructure and this has a negative impact on service delivery, which also threatens the safety and security of our people. Therefore the flood disaster allocation by government departments must be expedited.
Undoubtedly, monitoring is of paramount importance and the MF is very glad that the Minister has come out very strongly on the issues of fraud and corruption, as these are some of the greatest negative impediments that paralyse service delivery. The MF will support the Bill. [Time expired.] [Applause.]