Chairperson, all Acts of Parliament have unintended consequences and therefore schedules have to be regularly amended. This amendment Bill became necessary because of inadequacies in the definition of disability. This led to a lack of uniformity in assessments methods, which in turn led to budgeted amounts for disability grants being exceeded.
Cope believes that the definition of disability in the Amendment Bill will work better, but a question remains: Will the 400 trained officials whom the department trained at a cost of R462 683 be able to uniformly determine whether an applicant has a moderate to severe limitation to his or her ability to function as a result of physical, sensory communication, intellectual and mental disability making it impossible for such a person to obtain the means for maintenance or employment?
Government will have to institute some kind of peer review to ascertain whether provinces were assessing disability uniformly. Presently, the corrupt practices of South Africa also need to be taken into account. Each of the 400 health facilities that will be set up across the country in support of this Act will have to be regularly audited in order to contain irregularities and corruption.
Officials who have been trained to assess disability should be routinely transferred to other centres so that corrupt practices do not become rooted. We also want to urge the hon Minister to present the portfolio committee with a review of this amendment 12 months after it has been enacted. We need to gauge whether the amendments we are making have, in fact, been effective.
As we are now operating on the basis of a fiscal deficit it is imperative that we keep government expenditure in check. In two years time, the cost of servicing government debt will have risen to over R100 billion. As with Greece, the deficit is going to have serious consequences for our economy.
Furthermore, as the present government is using debt to pay for consumption, not infrastructure development, we can expect resources to become very constrained in the months and years ahead.
The amendment of section 18 of the Principal Act is a great improvement as it allows for self-correction through an appeal of the agency itself. It is very important that the agency fully comprehends the nature of due process and will be able to handle appeals with juridical capability and medical competence.
To obviate litigation is always a preferred way of settling disputes. The courts must always be the final recourse. Litigation is horrendously expensive.
It will be of great importance to Parliament if appeals are analysed to get to the bottom of the problem. If the same problem is continually surfacing from a certain office, area or individual, the department can deal with the root cause quickly and effectively. As a member of the portfolio committee, I urge the hon Minister to ensure that an analysis of appeals takes place routinely and that we are kept in the loop.
Finally, I come to the question of the appointment of a tribunal. In Japan there is an agreement that it is better to take 90 days to plan and 10 days to execute the plan. In the West, planning takes 10 days and the execution takes 90 days. I am making this point that if officials in the provinces do their job well and thoroughly and provide the applicant, who has been turned down, with a detailed explanation it will help to ease up the appeal process and save the Minister from having to appoint an independent tribunal.
In our view the agency itself should never disqualify any applicant without a second opinion and some kind of peer review. Every disqualification should be made as watertight as possible. If an appeal succeeds it will simply mean that someone has not done his or her work properly.
While we support the Bill, we trust that the Minister will keep us in the loop as we have requested. It is very important for us to know whether the amended Act is moderately or substantially better than the Principal Act. Thank you.