Deputy Speaker, the worldwide recession affected South Africa much more than we expected. Economic recovery will be slow and uneven, and the recession has resulted in job losses, business closures, reduced consumer spending and, therefore, much reduced income for the state. The expected revenue shortfall of some R70 billion plus will have a serious impact on the spending ability of government and discipline is required in this regard.
I would like to ask the hon Dubazana to listen to this, and when looking at the appropriations, one finds considerable spending by government on social security, which the DA welcomes, hon Dubazana. It remains a matter of concern, however, that provision is made once more to bail out poor performing and poorly managed state-owned enterprises such as the SABC and the Land Bank. How long will government persist in using taxpayers' money to hide poor management, ascribable mainly to affirmative action and cadre deployment?
Considering the expected shortfall in revenue, the Minister had to do a fine balancing act when compiling the appropriations. Thought had to be given to ways of financing the shortfall. The decision to initially do so by way of loans is acceptable, but it will be necessary to bring expenditure into line with revenue as soon as possible. The main options open to the Minister are to either cut spending or raise taxes or both. If government manages taxpayer money wisely, however, tax increases can be avoided. Major financial losses occur by way of corruption, as presented to us by the Public Service Commission.
In this regard, they said that 868 cases of financial misconduct by public servants were reported to them in the 2007-08 financial year. The total cost reported emanates from unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, as well as losses resulting from criminal conduct amounting to R21,77 million in that year. Employees were found guilty in 709 of the 868 finalised cases of financial misconduct. However, only 163, which is 22,75%, of the employees found guilty were dismissed and an amount of just R8,8 million could be recouped. Criminal proceedings were instituted against only 210 of the employees found guilty.
During that same financial year, 249 senior managers in the Public Service failed to submit financial disclosures to the Public Service Commission. This leads one to believe that they might have something to hide and that we may have seen only the tip of the corruption iceberg in the Public Service. The Auditor-General's finding then is, therefore, not surprising, that as many as 2 300 public servants benefited from contracts valued at R615 million. Mr Minister, we know that you, personally, are serious about rooting out corruption. You have stressed that, as Members of Parliament, we should all assist in the fight against and disclosing of any form of corruption, irrespective of political affiliation. We agree with you on this, Mr Minister, and we will disclose corruption wherever possible.
You have also asked, just now, that corruption be depoliticised. Once again, we agree with the principle, as corruption affects everybody, especially the poor. Corruption, after all, is stealing money from those who need it most. As parliamentarians, however, it is difficult to claim the moral high ground, when we sit here with colleagues guilty of corruption in Travelgate and in all likelihood many other shady deals. [Interjections.] It becomes even more difficult when we learn of taxpayers' money being wasted on the protection of political officials outside of government, such as Julius Malema. [Interjections.]
Little or no action has been taken on these issues, other than protecting comrades in the ANC. The question then is whether we, as parliamentarians, are setting the right example. The answer is clearly no. Politics will, therefore, unfortunately remain the name of the game until such time as we have cleaned up our own act right here in Parliament. I thank you. [Applause.]