Hierdie luukses kan 'n jaarlikse salaris vir 8 000 onderwysers betaal. Waar is die aksie? Ek weet waar die aksie is: Die Ministers slurp geld op, maar die kinders het nie klaskamers nie. Wat doen die Minister? In Julie verlede jaar word 'n taakspan aangestel -
... to look at government expenditure in the context of the economic meltdown.
Dis nou nege maande later, en dit het nog niks gebaar nie. Omdat niemand tot verantwoording geroep word nie, gedy korrupsie, want korrupte amptenare kom skotvry daarvan af. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraphs follows.)
[Let's take a look at the record. The public servants have to perform this function and the Ministers, as political heads, are responsible for achieving the targets. That is why a Public Service can only be successful if it consists of skilled and professional officials, but in our Public Service 20% of the posts in 26 of the national departments are vacant. One out of every three posts for highly skilled officials in the Department of Communications is vacant. It takes 20 months on average to fill a vacancy and sometimes up to three years. Where is this action that we were promised? A further reason is that instead of appointing applicants on merit, the ANC is obsessed with race and skin colour. The Employment Equity Act, Act 55 of 1998, reminds one of Nazi Germany when the participation of Jews as a minority group was severely restricted in certain sectors of society. [Interjections.] In South Africa we now find that thousands of competent officials from minority groups have already left the service and are not even being considered for appointment. Let me give you an example: Capt Renate Barnard of the Police Service repeatedly applied for promotion but, despite excellent qualifications, she was turned down each time. The ANC would rather keep this post vacant in the name of racial quotas than appoint a competent person.
Minister, are you surprised that service delivery is collapsing? The Minister also said that there is a call to account. Indeed. Once more we agree. The time has come to account for actions. Performance assessment is an essential requirement for effective management, so that department heads can be held responsible for the achievement of targets. President Zuma himself said so, because he promised that all Ministers would be signing agreements. He says:
We are building a performance-oriented state by improving planning, as well as performance monitoring and evaluation.
However, Ministers are remiss in ensuring that their directors-general sign contracts. Why? It is because not a single Minister has signed a performance contract yet. We can only ask again: Where is the action? Posts are vacant, Ministers and directors-general aren't signing performance agreements, and so nobody has to be accountable. That is why it is not surprising that the Public Service Commission has found that more than half of the national departments are performing below par. Year after year many national and provincial departments, as well as state-owned enterprises, receive qualified audits from the Auditor-General.
Underperformance costs money, however. An example of this is how Water Affairs and Forestry are supposed to grant licences for Transnet's pipeline between Durban and Gauteng and have been taking 11 months to furnish the necessary documents. Because of this underperformance and bureaucratic red tape, the costs for this project increased with R2,7 billion in 2009. Where is the action?
Worse still, state-owned enterprises are actually rewarding senior officials for mismanagement; for instance, the chief of the Land Bank, Alan Mukoki, who received R4,5 million when he resigned under a cloud of corruption. The SABC paid R11 million in order to get rid of Dali Mpofu. Successive SA Airways chiefs have received rewards totalling R550 million, despite operating losses of billions of rand. It is clear: The ANC government is abusing tax money in order to rid itself of cadres who are an embarrassment to them or whose loyalties are no longer assured after the shift in power within the ANC. Why should taxpayers have to pay for this, Mr Minister?