Chairperson ... [Interjections.] Yes, that is a problem. Can I have an hour extra to respond to everyone? [Laughter.] It would really be fun, Chairperson, if you allowed me an hour.
Let me firstly thank the hon Mufamadi and colleagues on the standing committee from all of the parties for their processing of the plans of the Treasury, Sars and various organisations that respond to us, and for an interesting and vigorous debate. If we had a little less heckling and more concentration on substantive issues, I think it would really help us.
In this regard, hon Harris, I was hoping that, not having seen you for a while, we would have had some progress in regard to substance in what you have to say. I must say I still find the DA, as the official opposition, bankrupt in economic policy.
The real issue in South Africa is that we are facing a recession which occurs once every 70 years. What are the strategic options that we have? The real issue in South Africa is whether we, as the government, managed our fiscus correctly in response to that recession? The answer is yes. Do we have a strategy for growth and to deal with inequality in a context where we are recovering, not only from the recession, but from 300 years of apartheid and colonialism? You do not have an answer. Where is your answer in respect of what everybody is talking about throughout the world today: the gap between the salaries of CEOs and the rest of the workers? No answer. What do we do about structural unemployment? Don't you speak on the youth wage subsidy as a convenient political tool! Do not use it as a tool! What is the answer to structural issues that South Africa faces? Where are the answers in respect of the structural reforms that we, as an 18-year-old democracy, have to undertake to really transform this economy? You do not have an answer.
What do we do about the product market concentration in South Africa that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, and everybody talks about, and the oligopolies that operate in this country? No answer. How do we create a labour-absorbing economy, as several hon members have pointed out? No answer.
So, what we really have is politicking in this debate. We conveniently look at Cosatu as the bogey organisation and start looking at manufacturing all sorts of things in order to create political debate. If we are really serious, let us put the substantive issues on the agenda of the committee. Let us ask all of us: What is your option on the table? Let us debate the pros and cons of that option. Then we are serious about solving South Africa's problems. Otherwise all we are engaging in is political rhetoric.
Let me congratulate the chairperson on the kind of issues that he raised. Is austerity working in Europe? The answer is no. Today, and particularly over the last month or so, there is suddenly the realisation that fiscal consolidation in itself - although we have got to handle the issues of debt - will not provide the complete answer. Today we are talking in particular about where the growth is coming from. Interestingly, the answer is moving towards saying we should look at infrastructure investment as the way in which we encourage growth.
He correctly points out that we have to watch out for the dangers of extended unemployment, and the tendency towards xenophobia. We saw in the French election campaign how opportunistically - this is what we need to learn from - a desperate person who wants to remain in office chooses immigration and xenophobic tendencies to try to win right-wing votes in order to remain in parliament, and still loses! I hope our colleagues on our left will remember some of those lessons.
He also makes a very important point about the rights of the employed and the expectations of those seeking jobs. That's the balance that we need to get right and that's the balance where, if we just want to start aiming at political victories, we are not going to get anywhere either.
He correctly points out as well that suddenly the truth doesn't matter. That is one of the issues around the whole so-called Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, GFIP, and the SA National Road Agency Limited, Sanral, and I will come back to that. What matters is how we score political points! What matters is how to smear coats of paint around corruption and all sorts of things in order to discredit them and we opportunistically use a R20 billion project as a political football!
What we need on the table are the facts. Here I am responding to the hon Koornhof. I apologise for not being here. I had to be elsewhere in the world. We will certainly make arrangements with you to put all the facts on the table. We have nothing to hide. These are all public entities. They all have public accounts and perhaps if you spend a little bit more time reading them, you will actually understand what's really going on.
The hon Harris talked about growth and one page. I do not know which speech he read. I think we must introduce him to the National Development Plan, the National Growth Plan, the Levers of Economic Change chapter in the Budget Review, and the Industrial Policy Action Plan, Ipap, programme. What we are saying is that we do have a growth path. We need to think a lot more deeply about some aspects of that growth path. The whole world is grappling with how to create growth in a recessionary environment. What are the strategies that we should employ in order to move in the direction that we are actually wanting to move in?
I heard a number of quotes from different journals, and so on. It is good that you read them and I compliment you on that. I must disappoint you, hon Harris. I have not received that phone call from the President.
He made various points about policy proposals from the Treasury and so on being ignored. I wonder how government runs then, because the Budget is largely prepared by the Treasury on the basis of advice given by the Ministers' Committee on the Budget and then decided on by Cabinet.
The budget is not the Treasury's budget; it is the country's budget. It is the government's budget and the proposals we put forward on fiscal frameworks, on tax policy, on retirement reform are to do with government policies. So I do not know where this imaginary rejection of policies actually comes from. We really need to take what are clearly a whole lot of skills and energies the hon Harris has and redeploy them in the right kind of way.