Mr Chairman, I wish to follow on the points made by the hon Leader of the Opposition and the hon Buthelezi, and this concerns leadership.
The editorial of Sunday's City Press was headed: "Country is crying out for your leadership, Mr President". The editorial ended with these two paragraphs:
Zuma will engender confidence in his administration if he is seen to be doing his job. Delegating and consulting is important and well-meaning, but it does not mean he should not lead from the front.
Otherwise, we might start to believe that this country is indeed being run by Vavi and Mantashe.
[Interjections.] I believe the President did show leadership on one critically important issue in his reply to the state of the nation debate. Here I am referring to his statement that the stable, macroeconomic policy aims of government were not going to change. But the President needs to lead again and unpack what he means by that statement, particularly in the light of the fact that South Africa is currently being buffeted by the winds of a severe recession. We need to face these winds head-on and recognise that we - all of us - are in for a severe bout of belt- tightening.
The Minister of Finance will tell you that government revenue is plunging. It is R10 billion below estimates for the first two months; and that is before corporate tax is taken into account. Notwithstanding this, demands on the fiscus keep rising - made by Ministers, parastatals and Cosatu. The reality has not sunk in.
SA Airways, Denel, the SABC, Alexkor and the Land Bank are all queuing up to be recapitalised to the tune of many billions of rands. Eskom and Transnet have a funding requirement of billions. Yet when the Minister of Public Enterprises warned that unprofitable state-owned enterprises could be sold off if they continued to underperform, as the state could not continue to bail them out indefinitely, she was called to account, not by the President or Parliament, but by Cosatu and the ANC secretary-general. To whom are Ministers accountable in this government? Who leads?
I find it astonishing that Mr Vavi can say of the alliance that -
We are the policymakers and the government implements. The government doesn't lead anymore.
Nobody repudiates him. But it is not just the Public Enterprises - Ministers have to take a reality check.
Projects recently put on the table by departments include free higher education at a tertiary level, extending the child grant to 18-year-olds, the extension of job opportunities to 500 000 individuals this year and eventually to 5 million, the demands of land reform and restitution, the cost of retirement reform and now national health insurance - and it just goes on, and on, and on.
What is the cost of all of this? It is hundreds of billions of rands. We have to have a reality check in terms of what we can afford. Now I hear the Minister of Finance's intervention that we will need to prioritise, but who leads in determining these priorities? And with a soaring budget deficit, what are we saying? Higher taxes? Are we saying higher taxes?
If so, what has become of the promise of continued stable and prudent macroeconomic policies? And as yet, I haven't even begun to factor in public-sector wage demands or the additional occupation-specific dispensation. Now, we may be sympathetic to some of these demands, but it does not help when Cosatu's president warns of "explosive spates of uncontrollable labour unrest across the country".
But it is not only fiscal policy which is being put under pressure by government's partners. Cosatu is now meddling in monetary policy. Yes, let's have a debate, but threatening to block the reappointment of the Reserve Bank Governor and endorsing mass action aimed at bringing interest rates down to what it considers acceptable levels, is unacceptable.
It is left to the ANC secretary-general to snap that threatening strikes over wages and interest rates was not helpful, particularly when the economy is in recession. Your leadership is required, Mr President.
Finally, there was the retreat into xenophobic protectionism by Cosatu when it attempted to scuttle the R22,5 billion sale of 15% of Vodacom to Vodafone. Leadership was silent and it was left to the courts to rescue the deal, sending all the wrong signals to foreign investors.
Minister Manuel was taken to task for trying to engage the private sector in the national debate. I may not have used the words that he did, but I identify with his motives. You see, in a globalised economy the private sector doesn't have to engage government in the way it used to have to do in a closed economy. It can simply walk away, and so we have to engage the private sector and make it part of the national debate.
Finally, the editorial continues, and I quote:
The ANC elected President Zuma as leader because it believed he was up to the task. There is no need for Mantashe or Vavi to babysit the President or usurp his authority.
[Interjections.] The country is crying out for your leadership, Mr President. Thank you. [Applause.]