Speaker, the hon President, Deputy President and members of the House, I salute you. Mr Speaker, in 2009 the hon President undertook to work harder to build a strong developmental state that would respond to the needs and aspirations of the people, better and faster than before.
Last year was meant to be the great year of action. The only action we really saw was the protection action throughout the country. This House had to establish the Ad Hoc Committee on Service Delivery. Was that the kind of action the President was referring to? Where are we with the developmental state?
Hon President, in 2010 you spoke about 27 000 cases which were to be assessed, using auditable written reports. We expected a report on how far that had progressed in all eleven languages. In 2010, the President spoke about rural infrastructure development and agricultural reforms to improve food security. We only saw development in Nkandla. [Laughter.] As Busisiwe Mrwetyana pointed out on Facebook, they too have voted for you, Mr President.
You said that your success will be measured by the increase in the number of small-scale farmers that will become economically viable. Therefore, the question is: where are they? The budget of the department does not agree with your statement.
A country that was once a net exporter of food is today a net importer. We are not in control of our food production anymore. Food prices have tripled in just two years. No country should tolerate the importation of food, and neither should we. We have enough land and people to produce our own food. This is a ticking time bomb. Where is our government's commitment in this?
One of the key aspects of job creation is investor confidence. Rule of law, sound policies and good governance influence investor confidence. The mixed messages on nationalisation are not doing us any favours, as they are causing the market to become jittery. We also want to see in very concrete ways how poor people in this country will benefit from the billions that the President has set aside for job creation.
We feel that throwing money at a problem will not necessarily mean that it will go away. We need to make sure that the money goes where it is meant to. The lack of jobs is a symptom of an unequal society and the belief that enough is being done to address this inequality on a permanent basis so that the gap between the rich and the poor in South Africa is reduced.
If the President had felt that creating jobs was the number one priority, he should have consulted the nation on what needed to be done. He should have called a national jobs summit to which all stakeholders, including the homeless and the workless, should have been invited.
While it is useful to get comments on Facebook and Twitter, it is not the same as hearing directly from them. How many of our poor and vulnerable have access to the Internet and modern technology? Their voices continue to go unheard.
One of the big problems in South Africa today has to do with the perception that some people are getting rich because of their political connections. It would have been important to hear the President talking about the vulgar flaunting of wealth by some of the new rich, while they invoke the name of the ANC.
We would have loved to hear the President reprimanding the sexist and racist rich people who eat sushi off the bodies of women and talk about its different taste when eaten off white women or black women. How inhumane and degrading that has been to the values of what Mandela stood for and presented. Such values are enshrined in our Constitution.
In your speech, Mr President, you informed us about hosting the 123rd international ... [Interjections.]