Deputy Speaker, if there is any deep scar of apartheid that I personally, and many of us in this House, have, it is that of job reservation and discrimination in the workplace. While some of us were such victims, it is clear that some of us were beneficiaries of that system. It is this history that continues to deprive them of the ability to see the reality of life.
I thank the hon Tshabalala for emphasising again that this employment tax incentive is not just about youth. While it is about the employment of young people, it also extends to the special economic zones, SEZs, where it includes all categories of people that are in the SEZs.
Hon Harris firstly bemoaned the reason that the process did not go to Nedlac. He also, in the same vein, complained that we have now sidestepped Nedlac. He said that the Bill was a watered-down version. He made a lot of inaccurate statements, among which was his disputing the figures that Minister Manuel put on the table, which arose out of the latest statistics in the Statistics SA report. I don't know which one he was reading, and hon Tshabalala referred to that.
I get worried when people read these things. Perhaps I should just offer you one piece of advice, hon Harris. You see, this is the problem. You conveniently quote the expanded one when you want to mislead this House, and when you want to state your facts, you come back and say that the Western Cape implemented the youth wage subsidy. Let me warn you again: Stop turning youth unemployment into a political football! [Interjections.] It is because you have no experience of having an unemployed person under your roof. You have no experience of having been unemployed yourself. You have no experience of working in communities where this kind of unemployment is rife.
Let me repeat the numbers that you deliberately distorted, even if you don't want to hear them. [Interjections.] The Western Cape stands at 23,4% and Limpopo - because that was the comparison that you made - stands at 17,8%. The Western Cape moved down. They were able to make a difference of 2%, whilst Limpopo was able to improve its employment statistic by 4,5%, and Mpumalanga by 4,5%. [Applause.]
This is the problem. [Interjections.]