Speaker, the learners of Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, their families and the whole South Africa are paying the price for rampant corruption and incompetence, which is being tolerated and even actively promoted by some in the ANC government. The governing party has lost its moral compass. It is willing to punish young school-going South Africans, who are supposed to benefit from postapartheid education, in order to enrich politically connected comrades through dodgy school book tenders.
There is no sense of political accountability. Neither the Minister of Basic Education nor the MECs in the provinces is prepared to accept that they failed the nation. They presided over education departments where, according to a report released by the Auditor-General, senior officials in Limpopo were involved in corrupt business dealings with the state's money amounting to about R30 million. This begs the question whether national and provincial departments have become criminal networks where officials and ANC-linked businesses continue to feed from the public's money, knowing that there will be no consequences for their corrupt practices.
Given the damaging impact on learners, continued wastage of taxpayers' money and refusal by the Minister to take accountability for the crisis, Cope calls on the Minister to resign. [Time expired.]