Hon Speaker, thank you very much. Hon members. The IFP will be supporting this Appropriation Bill of 2012, because we have a constitutional obligation to appropriate resources to national and subnational governments.
However, I think one wish that I have and all members of this House should have, is when we stand up to speak on the Appropriation Bill next year, we can say history has been made. History will be made when we as a committee consider the Appropriation Bill of 2013 in terms of section 10 of the Act. Section 10 of the Act requires the Appropriation Bill to receive amendments from portfolio committees to divisions or subdivisions so that we deal with those amendments, pass them on to the Ministers for comment and then come to this House and report exactly what the outcome of that was.
To a large extent, this budget - and for the last 18 years, in fact, to a total extent, I might say - has been a budget of the executive. It's not a budget of Parliament. We in Parliament represent the people and I hope that by next year, we can take the wishes of the people on the ground and consider service delivery protests and other complaints that come from people on the ground and influence the budgets of various departments. We've heard other colleagues speak about lack of delivery in certain departments, and this is something that we as Parliament need to take cognisance of. Having said that, I think when we consider appropriation we must not look at political parties and manifestos, etc, but we must look at what the actual needs on the ground are and respond to those needs in terms of giving departments whatever budgets they require. To the extent of considering the Bill and having received representations from various departments, one of the areas that I wish to raise, and I hope the Minister will have some time to respond, is that the Appropriation Bill makes provision for a 5% increase in salaries. As it is with negotiations, we see that even 6,5% is not enough and we probably would go up to 8%.We should consider the kind of impact this would have, because almost 40% of the appropriation goes to salaries and wages and we are giving more money. However the question we have to ask ourselves is whether we are getting more value for the money we are paying out in compensation of employees.
I think the second issue that arose in the committee is the Public Service Commission, PSC, report. Other members have referred to the Public Service Commission findings, but I think these findings are confirmed when we look at what happens in a province like Limpopo. We've had reports that there are vacancies in Treasury; the banking and cash management functions are not being performed adequately; and - this is a serious concern - the executive committee endorsed illegal procurement processes. I repeat, the executive committee of Limpopo endorsed illegal procurement processes, and this is a matter of serious concern. So, whilst we come here and we can hand out a trillion or two trillion rand, we have to make sure that the money is spent effectively and efficiently.
The last concern that we have is that an official of Treasury said that they were struggling to find resources for the infrastructure investment programme. Maybe, if the Minister has time, he can comment on this to find resources for the infrastructure investment programme.
The IFP, as I said earlier on, will support this Bill. Thank you.