Thank you, House Chairperson. The members will also, however, have become used to South Africa appearing at the bottom of rankings as far as education, labour markets, productivity and crime are concerned. In these rankings we are considering today we are ranked last in co-operation in labour-employer relations; second last in quality of math and science education and in hiring and firing practices; and fourth last in flexibility of wage determination.
In the World Bank's Doing Business 2012 rankings, for starting a business we have dropped ten places in the past year. But it's not hard to see why we are ranked so low in these last sets of measures. The ANC government's failure to hold teachers accountable, to reform the labour markets and to fix the problems with company registrations at the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission is well documented, hon Fubbs. This is a clear indication that the ANC is mismanaging our economy and is too distracted by the upcoming leadership elections at Mangaung to implement constructive policy reforms in the foreseeable future.
House Chairperson, perhaps the more interesting question is why a middle- sized, middle-income country on the bottom tip of the least developed continent in the world, ranks so high on measures of financial institutions. The answer, I think, is primarily because National Treasury has done a decade and half of hard work to introduce a world-class national Budget and strong regulatory structures for our economy. In addition, South African auditors, educators, lawmakers, regulators and corporates deserve credit for putting us on the top of the world in this regard. But on the flip side, where South Africa is failing, it is because key reforms advocated or supported by National Treasury have had their implementation blocked.
There is a simple recipe for improving our rankings. This government needs to introduce Treasury's proposals in this year's mini budget to introduce microeconomic policy reforms, reduce the cost of regulatory compliance for small businesses, remove trade barriers and introduce active labour market policies like the youth wage subsidy. These ideas are formally tabled in the Budget by the Treasury. They have the full support of the opposition. That this government's incapacity and ideological opposition from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Cosatu, will prevent them from being implemented is a national tragedy. I thank you. [Applause.]