Madam Deputy Speaker, I suspect that the ayes would actually be 211 because the Minister of Finance did not vote. I think he's too busy tweeting. So, if he does not vote, if he does not put his hand up, this Vote cannot be counted. I suspect that it's 211, and I think the hon Minister should be told to stop tweeting. [Laughter.]
Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order: I think there is a limit to the number of foolish remarks that could be made in this House. I think he should stay down.
Deputy Speaker, this not being a foolish remark, I will make it. The hon Ellis has a desperate need to demonstrate that he understands modern technology at his age. I am not a Member of Parliament and therefore not required to vote. [Laughter.]
Deputy Speaker, as the person who is counting here, I know that the Minister does not have to vote, so I never counted him.
So, do you understand, hon Ellis?
Deputy Speaker, may I say to the hon gentleman over there who stood up and said something that I apologise profusely for annoying him. I really do. I'm very sorry, Ben. [Laughter.]
That remark requires a deep apology to the whole House.
Hon members, I know this is a very long session and unfortunately we are not going to take a break, so I don't mind if you keep this House very friendly so that you are not bored by the length of the session. However, that friendliness must have limits.
Vote No 8 - Women, Children and People with Disability - put. Declarations of vote:
Deputy Speaker, people working with children see this Ministry as diverting attention on children's matters away from relevant Ministries. Departments like Health, Education and Social Development have the primary responsibility for children as well as the mandate and the money, yet children's matters are increasingly been drawn to a Ministry that can do nothing.
The consensus is that this budget should be urgently redirected into budgets where the Children's Act and the Child Justice Act, both grossly underfunded, can be managed and implemented. No disrespect, hon Minister, but the funds at present going to providing capacity, offices, cars and salaries in this Ministry have no direct impact on improving the lives of children and could be better used elsewhere.
The ACDP cannot support this budget while its ability to improve the lives of women, children and people with disabilities is in question.
Deputy Speaker, I am not sure what the member is referring to because she is hardly in the committee. [Interjections.] I want to tell this House that we do understand the mandate of this committee, which cuts across all the committees. So, the Minister has consistently been informing us in the committee about her interaction with other departments in the signing of the memorandum, so that they can work together. As we all know, this department is not a service delivery department, but a co-ordination, monitoring and evaluating department, which cuts across all the departments.
I am not sure what the problem is with the member that side. If she can perhaps attend one portfolio committee meeting, she will understand better. The portfolio committee does support this budget, with all that the member is saying. They are saying that the committee and the department are not performing, but there were achievements, which the Minister tabled in the portfolio committee, including the Children's Act. Therefore, the portfolio committee supports this budget.
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance, African Christian Democratic Party and Independent Democrats dissenting).
Vote No 9 - Government Communication and Information System - put.
Declaration of vote:
Deputy Speaker, the Congress of the People cannot support this Budget Vote because we cannot support the use of public funds for government propaganda. [Interjections.] By doing so we are aligning ourselves with the struggle to defend the values and spirit of a free and open constitutional democracy. The Government Communication Information Systems, GCIS, has a fundamental duty to manage communication and the flow of information on government service delivery that affect the lives of our people in a responsible, nonpartisan manner. What the country needs is open and transparent government communication telling the good news, the not so good news and, yes, also the really bad news and how government will correct what went wrong.
In a constitutional democracy, a free and independent media is an indisputable key stakeholder and partner in that process. However, under the leadership of the new director-general of this department this partnership has been contaminated, in particularly lately, when Mr Manyi dangled a R1 billion advertising budget in front of journalists, informing them that their newspapers could share in the advertising budget that we vote for today in proportion to the amount of government propaganda they publish.
Policies to centralise government communication is nothing less than consolidating a propaganda machine with totalitarian control of what goes out and what stays under cover. That is backed up with draconian censorship, hidden in the secrecy Bill which, although bogged down in the process at present, is still very much alive in the ANC. Add to that a cadre-laden media tribunal and South Africans will soon hear only what the ruling party wants them to hear. That is not what constitutional democracy is all about because ... [Time expired.]
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance, Congress of the People, Freedom Front Plus, African Christian Democratic Party and Independent Democrats dissenting).
Vote No 10 - National Treasury - put.
I put Vote No 10 - National Treasury, are there any objections? Hon Ambriosi? [Laughter.]
Declaration of vote:
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is still Ambrosini. [Laughter.] During the budget debate the hon Minister challenged my statement that South Africa has one of the highest combined corporate, personal and indirect taxations, and it is listed as one of the difficulties that I have with the ANC in general. This is not correct.
He asked me to disclose the information and I would like to ask him publicly to give me space on his website to make that information available to him, to his department and to the whole of the country.
Secondly, we have information that a study has been conducted within the Treasury where the choice was placed between extracting more from the present tax base or trying to expand the tax base and incurring the costs of doing so. A strategic choice was made because it was in fact cheaper to extract more from the present tax base.
We have about 2,5 million taxpayers and about 16 million registered credit users. It is obvious that there is an amount of people receiving income and not paying taxes. There is an issue of fairness in respect of those who are paying taxes. We have enormous difficulties with the budget of a department which is not pursuing fairness in distributing the tax burden - trying to do the easy thing, rather than doing the hard but right thing to do, which is that of broadening the tax base.
Hon Deputy Speaker, I just wanted to indicate that perhaps one of the things that we should consider in this honourable House is to have some training in terms of language proficiency, because we do struggle to understand hon Ambrosini from time to time.
Part of that problem is now exacerbated in the sense that in the committee, where we discuss these issues, he also seems not to understand us. [Laughter.] What I am trying to say is that on the issue pertaining to the tax base, the Minister has just tabled a Bill which seeks to deal with tax administration.
We will address those issues in that process. I hope that the hon Ambrosini will be able to read and interpret that legislation properly, so that he can be able to enrich the discussion in the committee. He should not only come when the Minister comes. [Interjections.]
In terms of the Budget Vote No 10, I want to say that we have looked into it. It underpins every aspect of the strategic objective of that particular department. As the ANC, we are quite comfortable to say that it should be supported. An opposition should not be an opposition for the sake of being symbolic about opposing a budget or a particular motion in this House. [Applause.]
Vote agreed to.
Vote No 11 - Public Enterprises - put and agreed to.
Vote No 12 - Public Service and Administration - put.
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance and Independent Democrats dissenting).
Vote No 13 - Statistics South Africa - put and agreed to.
Vote No 14 - Arts and Culture - put and agreed to.
Vote No 15 - Basic Education - put.
Declarations of vote:
Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to say to Minister Motshekga that we admire her caring and devotion to the cause of educating our nation. I want to make it very clear that our position to her budget is despite her stature. It is based on a rational response to the fact that there has been an accretion of "special issue" items to the Minister's budget since 1994. Her budget is made up of provincial submissions to which you add your policy-making and special project budget.
With this as the background, the budget is not focused on her core business, which must be to pay teachers better and introduce the incentive scheme passed early in 2009. It must also be to render smaller classes and to make sure that there are more textbooks and better information technology in our classrooms. It is also important, hon Minister, to make sure that proper management and training in our schools do happen.
Hon Minister, the department must drive the changes they want to have on the ground in order to have quality education in schools through principals and teachers, not by putting more expensive officials in large offices. It is also important, hon Minister, that you understand and make sure not to outsource projects that ought to be run by officials in your department.
In conclusion, it is important to make sure that no double funding takes place on projects because it is a waste of money, which we cannot afford. [Applause.]
More and more people are concluding that without a requirement on unions to be reasonable and to acknowledge that their rights do not automatically overwrite the rights of learners and parents, progress in the education sector will continue to hit roadblocks. We will never have the teachers and managers needed if a union's stronghold is allowed to prevent a culture of dedication and hard work. The ACDP calls for a review of existing legislation to allow for reasonable protection of learners' rights. What is best for learners, which includes what is best for teachers, must be our primary concern.
Early childhood development is not yet available in all schools and in all areas, despite legislation requiring provinces to prioritise spending on this in poor areas. As the world strives to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, early childhood development is a growing focus area for achieving equity goals.
The importance of early childhood development to the future calibre of our matric students and the nation's next generation of adults is critical. Insufficient resources have been made available for human capacity for early childhood development support at all levels of government and in the NGO sector. The ACDP is concerned that the departmental budget allocations are presently inadequate for scaling up early childhood development relative to the target population.
Funding for the early childhood development through equitable share is also problematic as provincial Treasuries continue to divert funds to other programmes, ignoring legislation requiring them to prioritise spending on early childhood development, especially in poorer areas. So, the ACDP calls for the prioritising of funding for early childhood development. We will, however, be supporting this budget.
The IFP will be supporting this Budget Vote, but my colleague, hon Mpontshane, who serves in this committee, has asked me to express the concern of the IFP regarding the 4 320 unqualified teachers in KwaZulu- Natal. His question is: How do we hope to achieve the goal of providing quality education to all of our learners if this situation exists? He believes that the budget reallocation does not come near in addressing this very important matter of providing the system with adequately qualified educators.
May I also advise the House that the United Nations has declared today, 23 June - they had declared this in 1990 - Africa Public Service Day to "recognise the value and values of service to the committee". I am saying this in the light of the concern of my colleague. Lastly, would the hon Minister of Finance or the Treasury consider an additional allocation to Parliament so that they can get these devices working next time!
The ANC would like to support this Budget Vote based on the following: The Minister and the portfolio committee have discussed some of the issues that have been raised by parties that have just stood up now. The Minister and the department have admitted to some of the problems that have been raised here and there are plans to deal with them.
Firstly, with regard to the issue of the backlogs in infrastructure, we are glad this was raised because it is the very reason we are supporting this Budget Vote: We are now talking of the Accelerated Service Infrastructure Delivery Initiative, Asidi, which is going to see to it that we eradicate all the mud structures that there are. At the same time, when we talk of quality teaching and learning, we are proud to say yes, the department is coming up with a plan to train teachers. There is an agreement between Basic Education and Higher Education to make sure that we get well- qualified educators and that quality education is being delivered in schools. We see the strides and progress that have been made in those areas.
Secondly, with regard to the issue of early childhood development practitioners, we are proud to say yes, indeed, progress has been made. About 10 000 early childhood development practitioners have been trained during the year of 2010 and we are still projecting, even in 2011, to train the same number so that we make sure that our learners get the necessary background for them to achieve more when they continue with their education.
Considering these steps, this budget is a step in the right direction to support the vision of the department and the ruling party. Therefore, as the ANC, we support this Budget Vote. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Division demanded.
The House divided: