Deputy Speaker, the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement can essentially be seen as a signalling exercise, but unfortunately the signals are not looking good for our country. Today was a dark day for our democracy, and let us just hope that we can avoid the dark clouds that are now hovering over our economy.
The eurozone crisis threatens to plunge the world into a double-dip recession if it is not handled appropriately and decisively. This far, however, we have not seen those two elements in the handling of the crisis. The ID therefore believes that we need to have a contingency plan in place for our economy if the market of our major trading partner significantly shrinks.
We should not, however, blame all our economic woes on the poor state of the global economy. There are many emerging economies that are experiencing phenomenal growth at the moment and we need to ask ourselves some difficult questions as to why we are not one of them. Some of these difficult questions have been asked in the National Planning Commission, but it remains to be seen as to whether the political will is there to enact the right answers.
The projections of growth over the next three years are slightly lower and, as a result, deficit projections are higher. The ID does, however, believe that the Minister is sending out the right signals regarding the prioritisation of infrastructure investments over consumption. The infrastructure we invest in, though, must provide good value for money and not lead to massive cost overruns such as what we are seeing in Medupi and Kusile.
We cannot allow ourselves to become economically uncompetitive through poor and expensive investments. In this regard, I would urge the government to thoroughly look into the affordability of the proposed nuclear build programme as this could lead to runaway electricity prices if the wrong decision is made.
Minister, the ID agrees with you alluding to the ballooning wage bill in government and we believe that it is right to be raised as a caution. As to whether these increases can in fact be kept to 5% next year remains to be seen, though. The ID is also disappointed that the Minister did not announce government's position on the youth wage subsidy as this has been an ongoing debate. We are still waiting for finality on this and hope to see a plan of implementation so that we can finally start breaking the backlog of our crippling youth unemployment. Thank you.