Hon Chairperson, hon Speaker, colleagues, and ladies and gentlemen, I am not going deal with the broad details of the budget, but I would like to express myself with regard to one or two principles involved.
The first point I would like to make is that the Constitution does not favour any one of the three arms of government. Parliament, as a legislative arm of our state at national level, is constitutionally on exactly the same level as the executive and the judiciary.
But unfortunately we as Parliament, as far as I'm concerned, are our own worst enemy. We as Parliament are supposed to look after the interests of the people and the provinces, and I am sorry to say I think we are failing both. Look at section 56 of the Constitution - that section gives enormous powers to the National Assembly and its committees to subpoena people, to get information, to investigate and to bring out reports in that regard.
I heard what the hon Coleman from the ANC has just said. What is lacking, as far as I'm concerned, is not more or better resources. What is lacking is the political will of the majority party's legislative members to hold the executive accountable. Everything you need is already in the Constitution; that's what you should use, not more money or more specialists.
I'm sorry to say that Parliament has become quite boring. Some of my colleagues have also referred to that. Parliament is not a platform where relevant topics in this country are debated and sorted out on a daily basis. Every day long lists of topics on relevant issues in South Africa are proposed, and none of them are ever debated in this Parliament. We stick to an agreed-upon programme year after year - all international dates, such as Women's Day and Children's Day - and all these are debated. But the truly relevant topics that deal with those issues that are important to South Africans out there on a daily basis are never discussed in this Parliament. We are failing the people and issues involved. [Interjections.]
Furthermore, the fact of the matter, Chairperson, is this. How serious are we when we do oversight of the different portfolios in this country? Only two portfolios were discussed in this Chamber in this fashion: the Budget Vote of the Presidency and the Budget Vote of Parliament. All the others were debated in extended public committees. On some days there were four, and in worse cases even six, on the same day! How serious are we as a legislature in respect of oversight over state departments when we do that? Even when those public committees were in session, we had committee meetings at the same time, from time to time. We are not taking these things seriously. We are failing the people, and we should move on. Thank you.