Hon Deputy Speaker, hon Ministers, hon Deputy Ministers, hon members, this Bill was tabled in Parliament on 27 October 2010 by the Minister of Finance. The Bill in essence contains a number of clauses that allow unconditional and conditional allocations to provinces and municipalities.
The Appropriations committee was fortunate to have public engagements with the National Treasury and various other public research institutions and civil society organisations. Two issues can be regarded as top priority: one, the lack of employment in rural and urban areas; two, the lack of delivery regarding sanitation, education, water, health and housing, which requires that the private and the public sectors admit that we have a delivery crisis of major proportions and provide solutions timeously.
Allow me to refer briefly to health and local government as another two pressing issues. According to the Human Sciences Research Council in their submissions to the Appropriations committee, five and a half million people in South Africa are HIV-positive, and women aged between 15 and 29 record levels of HIV of up to 33%. These figures have wide ramifications for our future growth. Of the 237 local municipalities, 26 or 11% can be classified as high- capacity municipalities. One hundred and twenty, or 51%, of all the municipalities in our country can be classified as medium-capacity municipalities, and 91 or 38% can be classified as low capacity.
The municipal infrastructure grant, MIG, expenditure will be R12,529 billion by 2011, and will grow to R18 billion by 2012-13. Studies, however, show that the quality of infrastructure being delivered is not up to standard and the maintenance of existing infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. A survey conducted by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs showed that 48% of the MIG projects experienced problems, for example contractor quality was poor, design failure was common and there were a number of other pressing issues.
What is clear is that Parliament and the Appropriations committee will have to play a greater role in future regarding the expenditure of government. Parliament approved the money bills amendment Act in April 2009. This Act provides for the formation of a budget office to assist the Finance and Appropriations committees in their deliberations about budgets. It is a deplorable state of affairs that after nearly two years the budget office has not been established despite promises by the Speaker to this effect. Madam Deputy Speaker, this is really long overdue.
The Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act further prescribes certain procedures and timeframes to be followed when approving the Division of Revenue Bill. For example, it prescribes that a period of nine parliamentary days should elapse after approval of the fiscal framework before the Division of Revenue Bill is approved. The purpose of this is to give the Appropriations committee the opportunity to liaise with portfolio committees and other stakeholders regarding the division of revenue. In this case, the procedure was not followed as only three days have elapsed after approval of the fiscal framework, and we are, strictly speaking, not legally compliant in approving the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill today.
Another factor to be considered is the necessity for the skills within our present municipalities to be upgraded or insourced, and this was mentioned by quite a number of other speakers. It is my considered opinion that it is a myth that we have a human capacity crisis. There are many technically competent officials in South Africa. The solution is to appoint people on merit, and not on race or other variables. This is why municipalities such as Theewaterskloof and Overstrand are well run. The DA supports the Division of Revenue Amendment Bill. I thank you. [Applause.]