Chairperson, hon Ministers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure for me to debate the first ever budget of this department that has a great responsibility for transforming the economy that the country inherited from the neoliberals or after 40 years of National Party rule.
We should take cognisance of the fact that the policy that we inherited was capitalistic in nature and thus embraced the free market ideology. Therefore, the department has its work cut out in turning around the economy to address the socioeconomic ills that the democratic government has been grappling with for the past 16 years.
We have a few programmes in the department, including the administration programme. I should say that key appointments still need to be made, and other vacant posts need to be filled for this department to run smoothly. It is, however, encouraging that the department intends to use as few consultants as possible in all of its activities in order to save money.
It is also noteworthy to mention that the Minister will ensure that he has competent and skilled staff who will ensure that delivery is not compromised.
I would, however, like to make the Minister aware that cadre deployment of competent and skilled party loyalists to carry out the mandate of the people as espoused in the manifesto is not a sin. It is a developmental state that needs to implement policies that realise the objectives and aspirations of the populace.
Hon Lees has had the guts to say that our economy is overregulated. He forgets that we were able to weather the storm of a financial crisis because our regulations were still in place. Most countries that went for deregulation, that liberated the economy - wholesale liberalisation - are today facing an economic crisis; they didn't escape the storm of the financial crisis.
However, because we as South Africa were careful about liberalising our economy and we were careful about keeping some of the regulations in place, we were able to weather the financial storms a year or two ago.
I should also point out that the programme on economic development is key in order to make our economy viable. The bulk of the funds are put into this economic planning and development and one of the core functions of the programme is policy co-ordination. We are, therefore, looking forward to a seamless policy implementation within and between government departments in the near future as the department of policy development takes off.
However, it is worrying that most of the funds or the bulk of the funds in this department are channelled or transferred through to the development finance institutions, DFIs. Now, the DFIs have a history of not serving the needy, of not serving the poor, because at the end of the day they are chasing profit.
We do believe and hope that the mandate of these DFIs will be looked at and that the funding models will be changed, so that they address the needs of the poor and the economically downtrodden.
I think hon Sinclair is aware that his moving from the ANC to Cope was a mistake. He is well aware that the ANC is central - or the majority of the people are central - in making policy within the ANC. Cope still has to sit down and attend their conference to have their policies in place.
I think it's a hangover or, rather, he finds it very cold in Cope as they are unable to come up with policies that can take Cope or this country forward. The doors are still open so that he can come back home; he'll be much more welcome.
South Africa has never been a developmental state. He said that the developmental state is no more, but I would like to make him aware that South Africa has never been a developmental state. We took a conscious decision when we took over this Fourth Parliament that South Africa needs to be a developmental state.
Now, what is a developmental state? A developmental state is a state that makes sure that its citizens, its populace, benefit from the economy of the country. One of its key issues is to make sure that it deploys its cadres into key government institutions to make sure that the policies of the movement are implemented. So, we are not ashamed to say that the Minister should look into cadre development, deploying cadres who are skilled and competent to make sure that our policies are implemented.
Therefore, one should take solace in the fact that the government is in good hands and has a visionary leadership that knows what the needs of the people are. The leadership we are talking about is the people who are sitting here, those who are in Luthuli House, who are looking into policies to make sure that this country goes forward. Thank you. [Applause.]
Dr M B KHOZA (KwaZulu-Natal): Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon members, first of all let me express a word of gratitude from the KwaZulu-Natal province for being able to take part in this policy debate on Budget Vote No 27 on Economic Development.
We are meeting at a time when in KwaZulu-Natal we have had some exciting things happening on the economic development front. We have the King Shaka International Airport that is about to be opened. We are already beginning to see the Dube TradePort, which has a 60-year vision, showing signs of success.
We are also grappling with some of the challenges because we are forward- looking in KwaZulu-Natal; and, finally, we are also now looking at post- 2010 sustainability issues because the reality is that we had a lot of investment towards 2010. I just want to share with the House that economic development actually should not be taken for granted. South Africa is a country that has a lot of contradictions. If you go to one part, you feel as if you are in a developed country. When you go to another part, you feel, well, I am in a developing country. But as soon as you move to the periphery, you actually find that you are in an underdeveloped country.
Therefore, economic development should not be taken for granted, because it is there to bridge that gap and to facilitate policy that is going to enable those who were disadvantaged by racial capitalism to fully participate in our trade and industry and not as survivalist participants.
I also want to say, Minister Patel, in your budget speech you stated that some 5,8 million people are unemployed or no longer looking for employment. Indeed, there is no way we can simply think that these people, without any support from us as government, will be able to see the light of day. It is important, therefore, that all budgets - the budgets of national, provincial and local government - should make a difference.
I am very encouraged, and I know my province is very encouraged, that we are beginning to see intergovernmental relationships begin to work. We are no longer working in our own silos, but we have begun to leverage on the strengths of all the different spheres of government.
We also have the challenge, though, that as you have said, we have R380 million that is transferred to agencies. This is also important to us because even in KwaZulu-Natal, 65% of our economic development and tourism budget goes to public entities.
What becomes important is how we do oversight of these public entities, because at the end of the day it is clear that a large part of our deliverables will be happening at that level where a lot of money is going to. So, it becomes important that we actually begin to focus on that.
We are also encouraged by the fact that the department is focusing on a development path. This is also important, because there are signs that an economy that is driven by super greed has led us to the global recession that we now have.
Therefore, it is very important for the state to be able to have a balancing act where you balance the role the market forces can play but also protect your own citizens in the way that we have done. Noam Chomsky describes that as "profits before people", and I would love to believe that we as this government would like to put people before profits, because we know that super greed can be catastrophic. The KwaZulu-Natal government led by the ANC is putting people first. We have a "one home, one garden" campaign. This campaign is very important in revitalising people's belief in themselves so that they become their own liberators.
They have to recover from disillusionment and despair and see the beautiful day that comes with being alive. Therefore, it's very important that we do not simply accept that people have become withdrawn. We should be worried about why people are withdrawn and we should be finding something with which to encourage them.
We also feel strongly that we need to invest in reviving the African merchant who was squeezed out by apartheid segregation policies. There are limited economic activities in most African townships. It is even worse if you go to the rural settlements.
In order to grow a sustainable economy we need to focus on the areas where most of our people reside and create economic activities in those areas. We cannot speak of economic development if our people have to travel many kilometres, sometimes hundreds of kilometres, and end up spending their very meagre wages on transport rather than food.
Co-operatives are very important, but are meaningless if not coupled with access to markets. Our lesson in KwaZulu-Natal is that we have had a 95% failure rate of co-operatives. The study has come out very strongly in making the point that the failure of those co-operatives was not because they did not have the quality of produce, but the problem was access to markets. Therefore, access to markets becomes a very important point.
I also want to share with you that I met a woman from KwaHlomendlini, in one of the rural settlements in KwaZulu-Natal, who had singly farmed dry beans that were almost filling half of her rondavel. These beans were not stored properly, and most of them went to waste because they started to have iinunu [worms].
Yet South Africa imports most of these dry beans; so now the challenge for economic development is how we begin to identify these people who are there and are making up the statistics of unemployment, because they are not registered. They are registered as unemployed, but these people have the skill and the ability.
However, they probably have inadequate or no exposure to how markets work and how to send their products to the markets. We need to identify these people in an organised fashion and we will certainly bring down unemployment statistics. We may, in fact, review our definition of "unemployed".
Local economic development remains central in developing, growing and sustaining our economy. Every investment or every disinvestment happens within a municipal area of jurisdiction. I am glad that in our province the premier, hon Zweli Mkhize, is very much involved with the municipalities. MEC Mabuyakhulu is also working very closely with municipalities to make sure that local economic development begins to become an expression of provincial development.
I am encouraged by Minister Ebrahim Patel's commitment, as was well illustrated in his budget speech, that the Department of Economic Development will promote workplace productivity agreements. It will foster entrepreneurial endeavours in the economy, particularly those of black entrepreneurs. I think that with regard to the black entrepreneurs, we should really be declaring this a decade of black entrepreneurs so that we begin to encourage that culture. To survive in the market one has to have that resilience.
Finally, Chairperson, I want to remind us in this House that each one of us has a responsibility to grow this economy and to sustain it. Remember, the moment you employ one person you are already beginning to play a role in promoting the economic activity in your area. You are also beginning to reduce the statistics on unemployment. I thank you very much, Chairperson. [Applause.]