Madam Acting Speaker, at the end of 2008-09 the national debt was R526 billion. Today it is about R1,3 trillion. In the next few months the debt servicing costs will have risen from R77 billion in 2009 to well over R104 billion. Let us see the red lights flashing! Let us not go so far down this route as to find ourselves in the company of Spain and Greece and other countries that are up to their eyeballs in debt.
Expenditure on the consumption side is unacceptably high. In fact, it is totally intolerable! The doubling of the Public Service salary bill over the past five years from R156 billion to R314 billion has set the cat among the pigeons in the area of the wage and salary bill. Meanwhile, haircuts notwithstanding, billions have been wasted by Ministers on jaunts, entertainment and other frivolous items. An amount of R25 billion was wasted last year on futile and fruitless expenditure. The procurement process is rotten to the core.
This House needs Treasury to issue a set of fiscal guidelines and enforce rigid Public Finance Management Act compliance. We also need an electronic board outside this Chamber to reflect, day by day, the public debt, the debt servicing cost and the cost at which government is borrowing.
Hon Acting Speaker, under the circumstances, expending scarce resources on Nkandla is scandalous and immoral. Expenditure on the consumption side must be reduced as soon as possible. I thank you. [Applause.]