Mr Speaker, honourable President, the widespread and pervasive corruption is wrecking the capacity of the state to deliver services to the people of South Africa. President Zuma's dithering on corruption goes to the essence of his leadership. Because he is compromised, he lacks the strength for this fight. The South African people do not have confidence in the President to tackle corruption.
The harsh reality is that on this President's watch, corruption has become systematic in all spheres of government, nationally, provincially and locally. Many local municipalities spend a lot of taxpayers' money on commissions of inquiry. This in itself is absurd because if the President decisively dealt with corruption, there would be no need to have inquiries.
Undermining the principles of transparency, the recommendations and reports made by these commissions are not even made public. These recommendations are not even implemented, which begs the question: What is the point, Mr President? Examples include the Municipalities of Tshwane, Mosoma and Ntsebeza reports respectively. Neither report has been released despite the fact that all are said to contain damning allegations of corruption and maladministration.
Systematic monitoring of corruption is poor. With only half of government's departments keeping databases on corruption, this means that we do not know the full extent of the corruption. The eThekwini Manase report has yet to see the light of day. This secrecy and inaction by government in turn often incites violence and protests.
Batho ba lapisitswe ke bobodu. Ba batla puso e e emelang ditlhoko le go tlhompha ditokelo tsa bone, ka go direla set?haba. (Translation of Setswana paragraph follows.)
[People are dissatisfied with the rate of corruption. They want a government that protects and respects their rights of access to basic services.]
The lack of intergovernmental relations is a source of concern because this leads to underspending, lack of planning, alignment and collaboration. This in turn leads to duplicate projects and programmes that waste taxpayers' money. The President, in his reply, must spell out how he will work to provide better co-ordination between the spheres of government and the departments.
Corruption is endemic in the Public Service and government should act and walk the talk. It is an indictment that in this government nearly 2,5 million people do not have access to basic sanitation. This is nearly 20 years after the advent of our democracy, especially in the rural areas. The government is working backwards with the rectification programme. Approximately R1 billion is used for rectification of shoddy workmanship by contractors who are appointed for their political connections with the ANC.
The lack of monitoring, inspections and accountability are the direct causes of this fruitless and wasteful expenditure. People are being robbed of their right to access to decent housing through corruption and irregular tender contracts. Corruption in housing is very endemic, from the illegal sale of land to the manipulation of beneficiary lists and tender entrepreneurs. Those are the norms in housing. A clear example of this was the R900 million tender in Limpopo that was awarded to friends and allies of politicians through the rectification programme of precisely the same amount.
The Good Agricultural Practices, Gap, market is an important market that has been neglected by government. The President boasted last week that R126 million has been set aside for the Gap market programme. This is pathetic when you consider that this is almost half of what is being spent on his Inkandla compound. Almost 10 000 people could have been accommodated, which means 2 500 households, Mr President.
The R1 billion guarantee fund and 83 000 subsidy scheme has not been implemented by provinces since the announcement last year. Most of all, the provinces have not spent 70% of their allocated Human Settlement Development Grant. And, mostly, R7 billion was allocated for the Urban Settlements Development Grant, USDG, for the upgrading of informal settlements, but only 32% of informal settlements have been upgraded thus far. This is a shame.
In conclusion, all of these points to one systematic issue, which means the systemic disintegration of the government's human settlements policy under this President. And South Africa has lost confidence in him to root out corruption when and wherever it manifests its ugly head. Thank you. [Applause.]