Madam Deputy Speaker, hon Deputy President, the 2011-12 Budget provides for total expenditure of R889 billion, which is 9,8% more than the revised estimate for the 2010-11 financial year. The funds for distribution among the various spheres of government will increase from R808 billion to R926 billion by the end of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, period.
Budgets will increase every year and the Minister of Finance is obliged to raise the necessary revenue to cover the proposed expenditure. This is normally done by way of increased taxation or borrowings attracting interest. It is therefore sad to see that many government entities fail to spend the amounts allocated to them. This underexpenditure against budget runs into billions of rand each year and in effect means that the revenues raised by the Minister is overinflated and unnecessary, and that lower taxation rates could have sufficed to cover expenditure or, better still, money could have been spent in more productive areas.
The underexpenditure by government entities is normally due to bad planning, poor management, poor productivity and control efficiencies resulting from cadre deployment, where who you know is much more important than what you know. Although there are departments that perform admirably, the majority of departments unfortunately perform badly, as borne out by the Auditor-General's reports. The question then arises whether the Appropriation Bill should be supported, thereby perpetuating the bad management, bad planning and corruption found in many government institutions. The answer is obviously, no.
Allow me to just give you a few reasons why we say no. Should we support the budget of the Department of Public Works, which spent only 59% of the R1,2 billion allocated to them during the last financial year on the Expanded Public Works Programme? This is an underexpenditure of R709 million on a programme designed to tackle the crucial priority of job creation.