Madam Chair, hon Deputy President, members, the National Planning Commission, NPC, chaired by the hon Minister of Planning, released a very honest assessment of what major issues we face. The most serious challenge that we face is unemployment in the private and public sector. More than 1 million South Africans became unemployed during the last financial year. The NPC says that 60% of the unemployed have never worked and many lack the skills needed to participate in our economy. Thousands of South Africans have given up hope of attaining a sustainable job.
What is needed is for all sectors of the economy to create low-skilled employment because South Africa experienced jobless economic growth the past decade. In fact, we shed jobs at an alarming rate.
The DA agrees with the NPC that high starting-level wages inhibit labour absorption. We will have to liberate our labour regime. It is estimated that 51% of the age group 18 to 35 is at present unemployed and depend on welfare grants, while almost 13 million to 14 million South Africans depend upon grants.
Education is another challenge. Despite massive expenditure, the quality of education available to millions of South Africans is not up to accepted international standards. The National Planning Commission found that teacher performance and the quality of school leadership in 80% of our schools are poor. In a study among maths teachers of Grades 4 to 6 who wrote maths tests on the curriculum for Grades 4 to 7, only 33% of the teachers passed.
Allow me to congratulate the hon Minister of Planning who, despite the influence of trade unions, had the courage to accentuate this issue, because teacher and principal competence has been a no-go area in the past decade. This is partially why only 15% of students who wrote exams in 2010 achieved an average mark of 40%.
Other variables, such as spatial challenges, marginalise millions of South Africans. Our present public health system confronts a large burden of disease due to HIV/Aids. The National Planning Commission also accentuates corruption, which is costing this country billions of rand.
The DA conducted research regarding the total value of government corruption in South Africa and the following figures must be taken into account: the municipal audits of 2008 and 2009 show fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R128 million, which in 2009 to 2010 went up to R189 million; unauthorised expenditure of R3,3 billion in 2009, which went up to R5 billion in 2010; irregular expenditure, which went up from R2,4 billion to R4,14 billion in 2010.
The DA's wasteful expenditure monitor investigated and found that the Zuma administration has allowed R4,91 billion to be spent on wasteful expenditure, since taking office in 2009, which is a vast amount of money. The Department of Justice is currently investigating 62 unfinished investigations into allegedly corrupt tender allocations, worth billions of rands. According to Sars, the figure of taxes owed by tender winners is R1 billion. Perceptions about corruption, according to the Global Corruption Monitor, are very significant. It shows that 68,1% of South Africans perceived corruption to affect the business environment very significantly and 65,4% of South Africans expected corruption to increase a lot over the next three years. The results of the Country Corruption Assessment Report showed that 80% of South Africans perceive corruption to be prevalent, with 41% considering it one of the most important problems to be addressed. Sixty-two percent of respondents from the private sector perceived corruption to be a serious problem and Public Service clients believed that between 15% and 30% of public officials were corrupt. Some Public Service managers held the view that up to 75% of their own staff was corrupt.
The core function of the Appropriation Committee is to monitor state expenditure. The National Planning Commission, however, noted that an estimated 20% to 25% of state procurement, amounting to almost R30 billion a year, is wasted.
The lack of accountability of government and state-owned enterprises has contributed to a culture of poor performance and nondelivery. Our economy is basically a commodity-driven economy. Infrastructure, or the lack of modern infrastructure, remains a constraint to economic growth and jobs. Brazil and Australia, commodity-driven economies, have significantly increased the volume of their commodity exports the past decade. South Africa, however, has fared dismally due to rail and electrical constraints.
I will be doing a disfavour to 50 million South Africans if I say that our government entities are performing as expected of them. My fellow DA member gave specific examples of bad planning, mediocre management and control deficiencies in government entities. The DA is a proud pro-South African opposition. We believe in an open, equal society where merit, not race, is taken as the norm. We believe that sustained economic growth of more than 5% can only be attained if we protect the independence of the judiciary, where we separate the state and political parties. South Africa's top priority is to create more jobs. The question is whether the ANC is doing enough to encourage investors from abroad to invest in labour-absorbing industries. Allow me to identify a number of economic constraints.
The many questions regarding bribery with regard to the arms deal is of concern and it is dissuading foreign investors to invest. The fact that the ANC Youth League threatens that the nationalisation of the mining industry is a viable foreseeable occurrence and that no compensation will be paid to shareholders demands urgent attention and condemnation from the ANC government.
The New Growth Path, announced by the hon Minister of Economic Development, stipulates 500 000 jobs per annum for the next five years. What is actually happening? Only two mega projects have been announced this year.
The China Motor Corporation announced that a project in Harrismith will create 2 500 permanent jobs. This is laudable. The Coega Development Zone, constructed by Kalagadi Manganese, will provide 400 permanent jobs. The cost in this case will be R4,2 billion. We simply do not have the means to spend more on mega projects.
My question to the House is whether we are spending and allocating money derived by means of taxation to create a small business-friendly environment with a functional public service that provide services to the public in an effective and productive manner. Our present public service is simply not doing enough. The DA therefore cannot support this Bill. [Applause.]