Chair, Minister, the establishment of the Presidential Hotline in 2009 was a laudable initiative that, if properly implemented, could have made a real and tangible difference to the way in which South Africa's public representatives performed in government and could have contributed to the fight against corruption.
However, Minister, the Presidential Hotline has not lived up to its expectations. According to a parliamentary reply to a question posed by the DA, you noted that only 55 857 queries were resolved during the period September 2009 to 31 October 2010 out of more than a million calls registered. In the light of this glaring failure, how on earth do you justify allocating a further more than 16 and a quarter million rands for the purpose of the Presidential Hotline, when the money could rather been have spent on improving service delivery and the lives of our people?