House Chairperson, Deputy President, we are dealing here with the basis for distributing revenue to the three spheres of government for the financial year 2010-11. The debate on the Division of Revenue Bill takes place against growing uneasiness and impatience across our country.
Service delivery rumblings, witnessed almost daily, are becoming ominous. The poor voters are at the receiving end. The passing of the Bill today must be meaningful to our people. As Parliament we must hold government accountable to its promises. No more hollow promises at all levels of government should be entertained. Government must address the plight of the people.
Cope welcomes the Budget reform which empowers Parliament to amend government's budget so that the most urgent needs of South Africans are indeed addressed. The million dollar question is, however, whether this House is equal to the challenge of urgently appointing highly skilled people with real capacity and the ability to deal with budgets or will it just resort to cadre deployment rather than the skills that are appropriate for Parliament's budget office.
Of course, because of the ruling party's "sweethearts" we are about to encounter the issue of accountability. Regrettably, the developmental state is moving very slowly in respect of the development of our people, hence Balfour is on fire today.
Cope advocates an activist state wherein citizens will keep government accountable. We must understand that people are not taking kindly to this new segment of the ruling party called "tender-preneurs", as confirmed by the SACP pronouncement on it. People are sick and tired of being used to keep the ruling few in their positions, from where they pick the public pocket for their own enrichment.
Cope confirms that the Minister of Finance performed a good balancing act with the Budget. Now government must walk the talk, so that the people who are protesting can see an honouring of promises that were made, leading to change in the places where they live.
We are concerned that the state-owned enterprises are treating the public purse as their own cash cow to be used for regular milking. In passing this Bill, we need assurances that they will be watched strictly by Parliament. We must stop making the people's assets into plundering fields for those who are well aligned and connected. This cancer must be rooted out. I wonder, however, if the Minister of Public Enterprises has the power and the support of Cabinet to make sure that those who are "connected" are dealt with when they are discovered with their hands deep in the cashbox.
Government's promise to focus more on job creation and rural development has our support. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and seeing is believing. This focus should not be undermined because some well- connected people are aiming for self-enrichment. The people's patience is running thin. We are worried that we are seeing a repeat scenario of George Orwell's Animal Farm.
We agree that crime, health, education, jobs and poverty reduction are critical service-delivery barometers. In this debate today we are appropriating R902 billion of the Budget to the three spheres of government - a lot can be done for the poor with that.
Let me turn to the conditional grants and their potential for job creation. With the receiving entities unable to manage debt and lacking proper financial management, these grants are open to mismanagement. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that much of these grants will be used to cover debts in local authorities. We note that the Financial and Fiscal Commission will be reviewing the grants. Cope believes the review can be done quicker. We believe further education and training colleges should be capacitated to address the shortage and mismatch of skills, and to prioritise the creation of those skills whose absence have been identified as limiting the growth of the economy.
As Cope we are delighted that the committee has agreed that the money allocated and appropriated will be accounted for by the Ministers, the departments and the local government.
We support the intention to recapitalise about 200 technical schools. We support the Dinaledi schools, but we want to emphasise that given the measures that have been put in place to deal with their failures, all schools must put programmes in place to enable them to perform appropriately and to implement what has been agreed upon.
We want to make this point very simply: Money that is intended for projects must be put to optimum use. The enormous leakages everywhere have to be stopped. This government was born out of the struggle of the people and that struggle must be rewarded. To abandon the people in whose name the struggle was waged to benefit a few is to betray the people. We support the Bill but we wish to warn that it could very well become the rope with which the ruling party hangs itself. Thank you. [Applause.]