Chairperson, the global financial crisis continues to have an impact on economies around the world. Budget deficits have soared to unprecedented heights as tax revenue has fallen sharply. Employment, as we know, is falling in almost every country, with South Africa not being an exception. Clearly, this crisis presents a huge challenge to the developmental state, requiring government intervention as far as possible.
In this regard, the ACDP supports the framework agreement between government, labour and business and the measures that were announced recently. It must be borne in mind that such co-operation was the essence of the success of the Asian tigers. So, we look forward to further co- operation in this regard.
We can also appreciate the counter-cyclical approach adopted by government, as well as the foresight of having the R787 billion infrastructure programme that was announced way before this crisis hit us.
Clearly, the most urgent challenge relates to protecting jobs. Yesterday the Minister of Labour provided details of the R2,45 billion training lay- off scheme. We would like to see that implemented far quicker. It is interesting to note that Brazil has created almost 500 000 jobs in this climate whilst it has come out of recession in a six-month period. We know that this is a target that we are also looking at. So, it might help to look. And, whilst we appreciate that their economy is much stronger than ours, we could learn lessons there as well.
The best weapon that government has is the budget surplus that we built up in the boom years, which now allows for our deficit to be financed and for government spending to continue. However, the real challenge will be to spend the limited funds better, to do more and better without additional resources.
For us to emerge stronger from the recession, we need to focus on microeconomic issues, such as providing cheaper bandwidth, reliable electricity and uncongested ports. We also agree that we need to address inefficiency in the public sector, regulatory issues that impede our global competitiveness, the skills shortage and - let us not forget - business collusion. This is how the challenges posed by the current global economic crisis can be met. Thank you very much for this debate, Ms Fubbs.