Madam Deputy Speaker, we will definitely support this budget. The budget, as presented to us, is explicitly designed to build local government further. We have just come out of an election. We now have space to see the implementation of the local government turnaround strategy, which emerged just before the elections. What leap of faith are we told about? There is no leap of faith here! [Interjections.]
Concretely, the elections are over. We must talk about the new councillors receiving support from the induction of councillors we have come from this morning, and from the budget proposals that are in place to assist with service delivery across the board. There is explicit co-operation that we are receiving from this department. From the beginning of the year the leadership inside the internal audit committee has been appointed. We are receiving absolute interaction in the committee with the department about sorting out any irregular expenditure that may have been there before. The department receives strong recommendations from the Auditor-General. We are experiencing absolute collaboration and nothing else with this department.
The challenges that local government faces are too important for grand- standing opposition to the Budget Vote. It goes to service those municipalities and other departments that work with municipalities to provide the services that we would like to have. The Budget Vote that we support here today is going to go a long way to implementing the local government turnaround strategy they are saying they have not seen its light of day. How would that happen without this support? [Applause.]
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Independent Democrats and African Christian Democratic Party dissenting).
Vote No 4 - Home Affairs - put and agreed to.
Vote No 5 - International Relations and Co-operation - put.
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance and Independent Democrats dissenting).
Vote No 6 - Performance monitoring and Evaluation - put.
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance, Independent Democrats and Congress of the People dissenting).
Vote No 7 - Public Works - put.
Declarations of vote: