Speaker, Ministers and hon members, Parliament is dealing with the Budget in compliance with the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act, Act 9 of 2009. There is a provision in this Act that directed Parliament to establish a Budget Office in order to help Parliament's committees to amend the Budget and engage with government. We have spoken about this delay in Parliament implementing its own law. To date, however, there has been no progress in this regard. Parliament's committees are expected to engage with Ministers of Finance as well as government on the Budget, but the committees suffer from a lack of capacity, especially the Appropriations committee.
It is unclear what the consequences will be when Parliament fails to comply with this Act. It is an Act initiated by Parliament and passed by Parliament to be implemented by Parliament itself. As a committee of Parliament, we are indeed inadequately resourced. In order for us to deal with this we need research capacity, economic capacity and a budget analyst, to mention but a few.
In the committee we discussed the Budget and government's main priority in detail. Nonetheless we believe that the key priorities remain critical for our country. There are, however, various weaknesses in government's expenditure pattern. This implicates government's lack of capacity to implement the required system and structures. The Department of Basic Education is a good example in this regard. At local government level, service delivery protests remain the order of the day. This is further fuelled by the heads of department worrying about trying to fulfil the executive authority's political wishes, not whipping officials to deliver quality service to our people.
The Department of Public Works is another case in point. This department is supposed to be a driver behind job creation, yet it is stained with lease scandals and corruption. All of us as Members of Parliament should be intolerant of poor management, corruption in the management of tenders by state officials and underspending by departments and provinces. The Department of Health is the worst and most worrying department. Not only is it insufficiently capacitated, but its system seriously lacks compliance.
We were told that the country will not meet the Millennium Development Goals, especially the one relating to maternal and infant mortality below the age of five years. This is unacceptable. Provinces are refusing to comply with national priorities because they have their own priorities. President Zuma's performance agreement, which should become the marshalling force for service delivery, will never see the light of day if the provinces' to adhere to this performance agreement remains unattended to.
The main problem is that money is not spent on quality projects. In addition, the state's ability to implement government priorities remains very weak. Departments continue to employ consultants to do work they are supposed to be doing. Limpopo is a good case in point. The Free State is not too far behind in this regard. More worrying is the lack of skilled personnel in the health sector. We warned beforehand that budget approval should not communicate a message to government departments that it is their time to eat. We have seen officials in Limpopo squandering government and taxpayer's money as if it were their personal chequebook. This is worrying, to say the least. In conclusion, Cope supported the fiscal policy and we support the Division of Revenue Bill but, Minister, help us to protect those brave officials who stand up against corruption and blow the whistle. Tell the premiers, including the Premier of the Free State, not to victimise those who come forward and blow the whistle against corruption. Cope supports the Bill. [Time expired.] [Applause.]