Thank you very much, Deputy Chairperson. In this province during this financial year, we are also building 10 new schools and refurbishing 15 more, with a further 15 going into the planning stage. We are also going to be able to produce or deliver more schools and more health care facilities because we are making specific use of the downturn in the economy and we are finding, through the tender processes, that we are getting far better bang for our buck and are able to build schools cheaper than we have been able to for a very long time. That is in line with what the Minister said last year and this year - that we have to learn to do more with less. That is exactly what we've got to do. We've got to make sure that we are more efficient when we spend the taxpayer's money.
Talking about spending the taxpayer's money, obviously I must use this opportunity to show that we are doing it effectively. I can tell this House that it was a great feeling in our province when we received clean audits across the board from the Auditor-General. Obviously we've got to work as hard as we can to continue that record. It's not always as easily done as said, but we will make sure that we carry the responsibility of spending the taxpayer's money efficiently.
I also want to touch on an area of governance. I think you might have noted that we passed a piece of legislation in our province that says we will not be allowing officials working in our province to do business with the province. The Auditor-General highlighted how many people work in the departments and actually do work with those departments. We passed a law and we are going to be rolling it out this year. We can analyse our list of officials who work for us and our supply chain system to see if there are any duplications. This is where we can root out corruption.
Talking about declarations, I think there are a number of issues we need to highlight. The Public Service Commission says that it's a legal requirement for each of us as hon members to complete our declaration of our own interests every year. This also applies to senior management across government. Only 42% of senior managers in South Africa actually filled in that declaration. There is a law that states it has to be done, but only 42% have done it. In the Western Cape, 100% have filled in their forms of declaration. I think that just really goes to show that we've got to continue to improve, continue that cycle and continue to offer taxpayers the guarantee that we are going to look after their money responsibly.
I must also say that I think we really, really need to come down on corruption. We all talk about corruption time and time again. We really need to put measures in place to deal with corruption, to root it out where it raises its head and make sure that we deal with it in a public manner. That is the only way we are going to get rid of this scourge.
Also, I would like to speak to this House following on the chair of the committee's comments when he opened this debate. He said a lot about the City of Cape Town. I would like to offer the Universal Household Access to Basic Services, uHABS, Index, report, which talks exactly about service delivery on the ground to the people who need it. He spoke about our money being spent on the rich and not the poor. Well, that report speaks exactly to service delivery. I would like him to read some of the report of the national Minister of local government and some of the annual report, which shows where that money is spent.
You will have noticed that the opposition in the Western Cape does not raise that knee-jerk comment to our budget anymore. They no longer say, "Ah, it's only being spent on the rich!" We showed them that 83% of the budget of the Western Cape goes directly to benefit the poor. That's 83% of that budget! [Applause.]
I would also like to say that we need to make sure that the way in which we spend our money is in the interests of delivering a different life to everybody in this country. How do we spend that money? I know that from our provincial government's point of view we've got to make sure that in our own procurement space we are spending our money effectively and specifically to help the small, medium and micro enterprise, SMME, sector to make a difference. We are helping the SMME sector to be more cost- effective and I'm very happy to report in this House that the last quarterly report ...