We are here to vote on the budget of the National Treasury, yet the debate which is engulfing us, prompted by the Minister, seems to be a debate on the entire state of the economy, service delivery and the entire range of government issues, even including the rule of law. Why is that the case? Perhaps there is a reason.
On all accounts, and there is consensus, the Treasury is conducting an extraordinary job. It's endowed with a group of skilful, dedicated government officials who are part of a noble tradition that they have kept up. But there is a dark lining to the silver cloud. The fact is that there is enormous continuous pressure on this group of people to do more and more. Their responsibilities spread across various departments to achieve certain government goals, like promoting employment and promoting black empowerment in all the respective line functions. Somehow there are expectations that the Treasury should enable them to achieve those goals. I wish to sound a word of warning and concern not to overburden the Treasury with what work because it can do the work, making it do the job of everyone else, because it will end up not working. Treasury is a unit which is working properly. It should remain limited to doing what its statutory mandate is - basically that of administrating money, developing budgets and making policy decision in a limited number of fields.
The most important of those fields, which reconnects with the broader macroeconomic debate, is fiscal policies. I, for one - and I've been on record saying this over and over again - think that there is a need for a comprehensive reconsideration of the tax system. We are paying too much tax, both at the corporate and the personal level. The combination of tax paid at corporate and personal level is among the highest in the world. If there is one thing that causes economic recession, or at least impairs economic progress and employment generation, it is the overburdening effect of the tax system.
The second decision Treasury makes at the policy level is what to put in the Budget and what to put outside the Budget. We are very concerned about - and we have said this on prior occasions - there being new indirect taxes which are outside the Budget. First and foremost there is the indirect form of taxation through tariffs to finance the building programme of Eskom. This seems to be a trend and it's a very dangerous trend because the poor pay more than the rich.
The other concern that is recurring, which is a fiscal decision and a policy decision made primarily by the Treasury, is about the debt. Effectively, the Treasury decides at any given time how much debt we can actually sustain. It feeds that information into the policy thinking of government, which then adjusts the government objectives to meet delivery targets which can be financed with the overall amount of money available, raised from debt and revenues. The difficulty is that there is no plan for the repayment of the debt. I accept the Minister's argument that nobody else has one. The entire world is moving in that direction. If we are going down, we are going down in good company.
In the last minute that is left to me, I wish to request the Minister to engage - not here, because there is no time and space, but in a different venue - in a serious discussion about the reform of the monetary system. This discussion is taking place in other countries, especially in the United States. It is the discussion of the age. We need to think of the possibility of looking for sound money to replace fiat money which taxes back the gains made by each generation, which takes the interest attached to their issuance. I hope we can have that debate seriously and not with the Minister dismissing what I put forward with wisecrack remarks. I hope they will not be made on those occasions.
The unemployment challenge, which has been raised here by some of the previous speakers, is a challenge which cuts across all the departments of state. The challenges we are facing are primarily focused on the issue of the productivity of the country.
The issue of the exchange rate is critical ... [Time expired.]