Chair, the Minister in an absentia, the Deputy Minister in absentia and the team at National Treasury have a massive challenge to address the ludicrous levels of debt incurred during the madness of the Zuma regime while trying to boost the economy to deal with a dwindling tax income and to turn around the trend of increasing unemployment. We just heard that it has increased to 29%.
The budget presented is a bailout budget, attempting to fill the holes left by state capture. It the Minister was here, we would acknowledge that he heard it in the National Assembly debate as well. If your actions are in the interest of growth and prosperity, we will support you fully. If your actions are politically directed and continue to feed the budget deficit, we will oppose you with everything that we have.
The introduction of the Fiscal Responsibility Bill is key to dealing with the way in which the public purse is managed. The handing out of large sums of cash to the failing SOEs, if it must be done, it should come with stringent conditions attached. Those conditions
cannot be agreed in the offices of the executive; they must be disclosed and debated by Parliament - those who have been given the authority to exercise oversight over the executive.
How safe do you feel, Minister? Should there be a change of God in the highest office? And, an SOE fails to meet its conditions due to a fresh or dare I say continued frenzy of fiscal looting. Will we then get another Des Van Rooyen, Minister, who is compliant and willing to sign off the deviations? Make the conditions known, Mr Minister, to protect yourself, your department and South Africa.
Our credit rating hangs by a thread and honesty and transparency may be the only way to save it. The independence of the SA Reserve Bank needs to be protected despite the absurd attack on it, and the independence of SA Revenue Services need to be restored after the brutal dismemberment perpetrated by Tom Moyane.
This is austere budget; Mr Yunus Carrim even said so in the committee, although he then denied saying it. With money being taken from the government services to prop up government's bloated SOEs; another public expenditure. These matters must be taken into a hand with firmness and decisiveness.
As this finance team contemplates some difficulties of having to do more with less, remember that this is the environment of poor growth and that this is a reality which most South African households face. So, also always keep South Africans - the people who we serve - in front f mind in every decision that National Treasury makes. Thank you. [Applause.]