Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon members, friends and guests, I would like to start by saying that the constituency where I am deployed, Dipaleseng, where the council sits in Balfour, Mpumalanga, remains convincingly in ANC hands. This is not surprising to us, as the ANC is the only party in South Africa that has the best interests of all South Africans in mind, not just the rich.
The fact that the ANC victory was not commented on by our so-called free press reaffirms the idea that in general the South African press is not independent at all. If Balfour had fallen - and I say "fallen" - into the hands of opposition parties, that fact would have been splashed over every front page in South Africa. Independent press? I think not. One of the biggest challenges facing this country is corruption. Within the Public Service corruption is widespread and is beginning to take the shape and size of organised crime. Billions of rands are removed from government coffers by these criminals. [Interjections.] Corruption must never be seen as a sexy thing to participate in. It is counter-revolutionary and every disciplined citizen of this country must take a stand against this disgusting behaviour by exposing and reporting it wherever it occurs.
The Minister for the Public Service and Administration must be applauded for establishing the Special Anti-Corruption Unit, SACU. So far the SACU has investigated 30 cases referred to it by National Treasury and is currently investigating some 8 cases which involve around 265 employees in various national and provincial departments in the Public Service.
The mandate of the SACU is to facilitate, co-ordinate and conduct the management of strategic information, investigations and disciplinary proceedings regarding corruption, and related misconduct cases in the Public Service.
The budget allocated to the SACU for the financial year 2011-12 is an amount of R8,4 million - R4,2 million to be spent on goods and services and R4,2 million allocated for compensation. If one bears in mind that corruption costs the South African taxpayer billions of rands annually, then it is clear that more money and resources need to be allocated to the