Deputy Chairperson, hon Minister and hon members, it is indeed a great privilege for me to reflect on the Division of Revenue Bill 2011 in this House, on behalf of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature, on this occasion as we debate the Bill in the year the ANC has declared the year of consolidating people's power for a national democratic society.
As we advance towards the centenary of the ANC, the Bill is an indication of the ANC's determination to improve the quality of the lives of our people. Let me draw inspiration from the words of wisdom spoken by the former President, Isithwalandwe, Dr Nelson Mandela, on the occasion of the President's Budget Vote debate in the National Assembly on 18 August 1994, when he said:
At the end of the day, the yardstick that we shall all be judged by is one and one only: and that is, are we, through our endeavours here, creating the basis to better the lives of all South Africans.
He continued and said:
This is not because the people have some subjective expectations fanned during an election campaign. Neither it is because there is a magic wand that they see in the new government.
The division of revenue by the hon Minister correctly responds to the questions asked by the former President. Indeed, our reflection on this Division of Revenue Bill is accurately captured in the reports that we submitted during the negotiation mandate. As a matter of fact and principle, we support the Bill. However, we want to raise a few issues, hon Minister, in relation to the Bill. Before we do that, we want to indicate that in terms of the division of revenue, it is our view that it indeed conforms with Chapter 3 of the Constitution, which affirms co-operative governance. To this end, this Bill puts into practice and applies financial logic to the affirmation of section 40 of our Constitution, when it says:
In the Republic, government is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated.
In line with our 2009 ANC manifesto priorities, we are pleased to note that the division of revenue over the next three years of expenditure will be channelled towards government's 12 outcomes, using government's functional groupings as the basis for budgeting, with the main emphasis on the following: job creation, education and skills development, health, human settlements and, more importantly - especially in our case, as Mpumalanga - rural development.
As you will know, our province is rated second in terms of HIV/Aids prevalence. That is why we welcome the increase that has been allocated to the comprehensive HIV/Aids grant. But we also want to indicate that regarding the amount allocated to health in general, as reflected by Limpopo in particular, we border on two countries - Swaziland and Mozambique. The reality of the situation is that the people of Mozambique and Swaziland, especially those close to the border of the two countries, do receive health services from the province of Mpumalanga.
We are not certain to which extent the formula, as presented, begins to take into consideration the fact that we have that challenge. Secondly, we are not sure of the extent to which the formula takes into consideration the burden of diseases. It remains one of the challenges that when the health allocation is done, this has to be taken into consideration.
In relation to education, although we are pleased with the allocation for further education and training, FET, colleges in the province, we still feel that it is insufficient when we take into consideration that Mpumalanga is one of the two provinces without a university. As a result, we are losing a lot of skills in the province, and we feel that greater and more resources should be allocated to further education and training so that we are in a position to make sure that we improve the skills that we experience a shortage in.
We want to welcome the allocation and, at long last, the recognition by national government that Mpumalanga is one of the electricity suppliers in the country. As a result, there is a lot of transportation of coal on our roads, and we are known as a province with many potholes, not necessarily because we don't have the willingness to deal with the potholes, but because of the amount of coal that is transported on our roads. Our road infrastructure is unable to deal with the amount of coal that is transported. Therefore, we welcome the amount that has been allocated to coal haulage on our road network -and we hope that it will be increased in the next financial years to come.
We are of the view that it is not a permanent solution to the problem. The permanent solution to the problem, in our view, is that we need to move towards transporting our coal via rail, so that we are in a position to move away from trucks on our roads. Then we would be in a position to maintain our roads in good condition.
One of the issues that we want to comment on, therefore, is in relation to the allocation to infrastructure, a grant that will deal with the challenges of infrastructure that is very unsafe. We also want to welcome the initiatives by National Treasury to deal with the challenges of infrastructure by making sure that a monitoring system is created so that we are in a position to make sure that, first and foremost, we accelerate service delivery in relation to infrastructure and also produce quality. It has always been a problem that where infrastructure has been built, you will find that some of it is not of good quality.
As I conclude, I also want to raise the matter that was raised in the public hearing around the issue of the municipal infrastructure grant, MIG, allocation as it relates to sports infrastructure. It is our view that the MIG funding as it relates to infrastructure has not been properly allocated because, as a result of huge competing needs in municipalities, sports infrastructure has become a casualty. It is therefore our view that some review needs to be put in place, either ring-fencing the allocation or giving it as a separate conditional grant to municipalities, if municipalities are tasked to provide that service. In doing so, we will make sure that sports infrastructure is built in our communities so that the youth also have the opportunity to use that infrastructure and move away from committing crime.
I want to conclude by saying that in the latest report that I have seen, there is no province that has received a clean audit, as alleged by the Western Cape, and therefore it is not correct that the Western Cape has obtained a clean audit. The correct information is that all departments have obtained unqualified reports - but not a clean audit. There are some departments with unqualified reports but with issues. It is wrong to come and mislead the House and say that the Western Cape has received a clean audit while it has not.
Let me conclude by saying that as reflected in our final mandate, we support the Bill, as I have indicated, and we are of the firm view that the Budget will intervene in dealing with the challenges that we are confronting as a country. Finally, let me draw on the wisdom of the late ANC president Oliver Tambo, on the occasion of his installation as the Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare on 19 October 1991, when he said:
South Africa needs to believe in our capacity to overcome our painful history; to begin again and to regard our failures ... not as finite moments, but as occasions for a new beginning.
I thank you. [Applause.]