Deputy Speaker, from Cope's side we want to state upfront that we will support the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill. However, we want to raise the following concerns.
Firstly, we agree that the Budget remains a tool for government for service delivery, but when the tool is not used appropriately to deliver service, we must raise our concerns. One of the issues that we have been dealing with is the issue of rollovers - rollovers versus service delivery. In considering this Bill, we must continue to emphasise service delivery, service delivery and, once more, service delivery in terms of the Budget that we are passing, including the Bill itself.
Our second concern is that in terms of the amending money Bill, we get given a particular period of time to consider this Bill to be able to apply our minds in order for us to be able to amend it. We are worried that the steamrolling of the process and the cutting of the time are aimed at ensuring that we do not read the fine print of the Act or the Bill itself, so that we do not see the exact amount of money that continues to bloat the top-heavy executive. We can see that this Bill will continue to put money into the executive, which is in fact going to have a negative impact on service delivery.
Thirdly, we are concerned that this Parliament will remain a rubber stamp for executive capacity. This must be addressed in order for committees to amend the Budget itself. Unless that is addressed, we will end up sounding like a broken record every time we raise this matter.
When the Budget is referred to the committee and the committee is not given appropriate capacity to consider the Budget and to make a meaningful contribution and intervention, we can say that we have the Bill but having the appropriate capacity will remain a distant dream. From our side we believe that the capacity of the committee must be put in place so that we can deal with the issue of service delivery and appropriate service delivery so that as this Parliament we pass this Act.
Having said that, the issue that has been raised, including the issue of spending capacity, remains a concern for the committee. Municipal and provincial government capacity to implement the capacity to deliver has to do with skills. Maybe when we deal with a Public Service that is integrated, we will be able to address this particular concern, but otherwise we will be supporting the Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]