Chairperson, unlike the Minister, I'll put the clock in my pocket so as to rely on you to remind me!
Hon members, Minister, Deputy Minister, Director-General Lungiso Fuzile - and I've noted the presence of the Commissioner of the SA Revenue Service, Sars, Mr Magashule - we approach the discussions and the debate on Vote 10 today guided by the need to create decent employment, eradicate poverty and deal decisively with the extreme inequalities in our society.
An important part of our vision is to build an economy in which the state, the private sector, and co-operative and other forms of social ownership complement one another in an integrated way to eliminate poverty and foster economic growth.
Hon Minister, as I said to the Deputy Minister this morning, part of the challenges we have with Vote 10 is that all that is supposed to have been said has already been said. What remains is the implementation.
Now, this Budget is about ensuring that the SA Revenue Service continues to meet its targets. I must congratulate Commissioner Magashule and his team in Sars for making it possible for us as a country to continue to meet our obligations, and for at times even exceeding the targets they have set for themselves under very difficult circumstances.
Hon Minister, I cannot agree more that this Budget is not only about the administrative capacity but also about ensuring that the Department of Public Service and Administration, DPSA, plays an important role in regard to infrastructure development in this country.
The Land Bank continues to support the agricultural sector, as it has been proved and demonstrated by recent statistics that it is in this sector where more jobs can be created in the future.
This Budget is also about ensuring that the mandate of the SA Reserve Bank is adhered to, beyond just inflation targeting, as you have already instructed in your early days in office. It is also about retirement reforms and making sure that the savings of our old-age pensioners and those who work realise maximum returns so that their future is secured.
The budget is about ensuring that the Financial Services Board, together with the Reserve Bank in terms of the twin peaks strategy, will, in the face of predacious market conduct, form the basis of what will make our economic resilience more important in the global economy. But, most importantly in the global arena, the budget is about the integration of South African interests in the national, continental and global interests, irrespective of whose interests, as South Africans, are going to be served in terms of ideological positioning.
Much has been said about the global economy. It is common knowledge that in 2008-09 we spoke about the subprime lending in the US that led to the financial crisis and the banking instability. In 2010-11 we evolved and understood the difficulties to be different, in that we now speak about sovereign debt.
But, the key question we have to ask ourselves is: Are we getting the right answers to these challenges, in the West, in Europe, and on this continent? I think much has been said, done and written, but we still have more questions than answers about the world economy. As South Africans, what we have said remains constant and it is something that we can rely on, because we have demonstrated that despite these challenges in the global economy we can hold our own without fear of contradicting ourselves, because we know what we are doing.
The subprime lending and the sovereign debt, at least in the past two to three years, have led to no less than 12 regime changes in the world. Now the question is: Are the austerity measures working? Let us look at Europe today, at what is commonly known as the Eurozone. In the West we saw the lowering of taxes and stimulus packages being put forward, which led, in our case as developing nations, to capital inflows, which, to a certain extent, could also lead, from time to time, to the volatility of our own currency.
But, as we speak right now, the unemployment level is a national and international phenomenon that leads to xenophobic tendencies throughout the world because it is natural that when the resources are scarce, people tend to defend whatever they have. Therefore, the issue of unemployment is not a problem for South Africa only.
The manufacturing sector continues to pose a serious threat to the stability and fiscus of many nations. The key question again is: As South Africans, what aspect of our history do we wish to be celebrated, irrespective of where we stand ideologically?
Let me talk about the issue of unemployment and the youth programme. The ANC has, as always, provided a policy option for how we should handle this particular matter. Therefore, as we have done from the inception of the ANC in 1912 - today, 100 years later - we always say we want to create a nonracial, nonsexist, prosperous and democratic South Africa in which all South Africans will have the right to work, to have shelter and to have their languages respected. As the ones who have provided the solution and a policy option in dealing with youth unemployment, it cannot happen, like it is at the moment, that as we celebrate and commemorate Human Rights Day, some amongst us will opportunistically hijack the solution proposed by the ANC and its government.
With this proposal before us, as we have done in the past, we are where we are - you are sitting on our left and on my right - precisely because of the negotiations that took place at Codesa. In 2008-09 when we first experienced the financial crisis, it was Nedlac that came with a comprehensive framework response. Let us not break what works. We must allow those who are supposed to buy into this project to buy in so that the implementation becomes much easier. I speak of the private sector, the trade union movement, civil society and government in general at the level of Nedlac.
It is very important that we also understand the role of the trade union movement. The first priority of the trade union movement is to defend the rights of those who are employed. However, we live in different conditions and circumstances and we have to balance the rights of the employed and the expectations of those who are seeking jobs. I think this is where the tailoring is, actually, in regard to Nedlac. [Applause.]
We must not use an emotive issue such as this one to land our people in a very difficult situation where you may actually even exacerbate racial tensions in South Africa. This is something that we have to walk away from and it is critical to do so. [Interjections.]