Deputy Speaker, the DA endorses this report, but unfortunately it stops short of telling the full story because the truth is that three and a half years after this House had passed the Money Bills Act, there has been no progress on the establishment of the Budget Office. Without the support of the Budget Office, as envisioned in the Act, the finance committees of Parliament will continue to find themselves blundering through impenetrable fiscal thickets each year. We are in the unfortunate position that the Budget Office is established today, but it does not yet exist.
The competent Professor Mohammed Jahed, who has been deployed from the DBSA to help set up the office, had hoped to secure office space in Africa House, just across the way, by July this year. He wanted an advisory panel approved by Parliament by August. It appears that both of these deadlines have been missed because Parliament has simply not come to the party. Based on this, I am not confident that the office and staff will be in place in time to advise us on next year's budget.
Furthermore, the fact that the Bill now requires amending in order for it to function properly is an indictment of the quality of legislating in this Parliament and yet another example of recent legislation that is simply not up to standard.
Lastly, in future matters related to the Money Bills Act should be handled jointly with the Standing Committee on Appropriations. It is not sufficient for our Finance committees simply to confer with Appropriations, as our report reflects. Thank you. [Applause.]
Madam Deputy Speaker, we expressed reservations at the outset of this process when the initial motion establishing the subcommittee was passed by this House. We need to have clarity on what is happening here. Parliament adopted a law implementing one of the most fundamental aspects of any constitutional system - the requirement of no taxation without representation - to enable members of this House to amend a Money Bill. We do not have the opportunity to amend a Money Bill and therefore we cannot exercise our duty and function of providing representation to the people of South Africa in respect of a Money Bill and taxation.
After the passing of this piece of legislation - admittedly a very complex piece of legislation - Parliament as a structure came back and said, we have difficulty in implementing it. They did not identify what those difficulties were. They merely said, we need to establish a committee to tell us exactly what those difficulties are and once we determine what they are, we will amend it. In the meantime, while identifying what the difficulties are, while we wait for the amendment to address those difficulties, we are not going to implement that piece of legislation.
Members of this House - through you, Madam Deputy Speaker - just think about it, if a department of state gave us that type of line. We have adopted extremely difficult pieces of legislation in many committees and we adopt legislation and we expect departments of state to just implement what is adopted. But when it comes to us, the structure of this Parliament has a completely different set of standards and we have a different response.
There is no justification, as the hon Harris pointed out, for the Budget Office not having been established. This is not an item that is subject to amendment. The amendments that are in discussion - perhaps when the committee decides what it is that is wrong - our amendment should not affect the Budget Office. The Budget Office is established in terms of the law. It is said that it is established by law, but you cannot find it anywhere in Parliament.
What we are faced with is the unwillingness of this Parliament - as an administrative structure, under the control of the Secretary to Parliament, under the supervision of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee, under the residual responsibility of the Speaker - to define the implementation of the law entrusted to it as an organ of state. None of us would tolerate anything similar from any other department subject to the oversight of this Parliament.
So, the real question is: For how much longer are we delaying, through these types of tactics, the implementation of the fundamental principle of no taxation without representation, finally giving this Parliament the power of amending Money Bills. [Time expired.]
Thank you, hon Deputy Speaker. Contrary to the submission made by hon Oriani-Ambrosini, when this House gave us a directive as Standing Committee on Finance, they singled out key strategic or technical challenges. These challenges are succinctly covered in our report. I am not sure which report hon Oriani-Ambrosini is referring to. Anyway, I understand, because you are not part of our team most of the time. However, I must indicate that, as a committee, dealing with the cited technical challenges, we have made the following findings.
The sequencing of the BRRR processes is not an easy task. In fact, when the Bill was before this House, all of us would remember that this issue was one of the key contentious issues that was brought to the attention of this House. As a committee, we also picked up that implementing the Act, co- ordination and coercion between committees as well as adhering to the Rules require a lot of skills in limited and compressed time and space. This House should acknowledge that! We are not dealing with a simple process here that can be used for political point-scoring. We must also indicate that one other technical challenge that was identified was the establishment of a parliamentary Budget Office. This is a process, hon Harris! This is not an event; it cannot be an event!
Those who came before you; those who were with us when we visited Germany, Sweden and other countries, will agree that in those countries it took them time to develop such offices. Due to having had a number of years with this kind of establishment, they developed technical capacity as a result of experience that they accumulated over the years.
There is a myth that I must really clear up. From where we are, as the ANC, we think that any notion that the mere establishment of the Budget Office will solve our challenges is a complete misnomer. It will never be alone in a position to assist each and every committee in the BRRR process. We should rather look at our internal capacity as members.
Committees of finance have clearly indicated or demonstrated up to now that they have the required capacity. I am calling upon members to look at the aspect of own internal capacitation without necessarily expecting heaven and earth from the establishment of the Budget Office. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Question put.
Report agreed to.