Thank you, Chairperson. Hon memebers of the EFF and my fellow South Africans. Chairperson, we want to state, categorically, that we are opposed to this budget. The Department of Home Affairs is yet to account for many of its sins, and for handing over the country on a silver platter, to a clique of corrupt individuals; bent on milking the resources of this country. Malusi Gigaba and his
group of thieves are still out there, enjoying publicly subsidised pensions; when they have caused untold damage to this country.
We have just come out of gruelling national and provincial elections, which almost plunged the country to disaster because of the ineptitude of the independent Electoral Commission.
The IEC must be immediately capacitated to ensure that future elections are credible and beyond reproach.
The multiple incidents of double voting and the shortage of ballot boxes, in some voting stations are an indication of how the IEC was completely unprepared for this election. The double voting crisis could have been averted, had the IEC not ignored the provisions of Section 24 of the Electoral Act. Furthermore, the IEC must scrutinise its systems, so as to have measures that will ensure that the zip-zip machine is linked to the voters roll.
We must also be able to use the Government Printers Works in order to print ballot papers. This is to ensure that functions of the state that are important such as voting, are not outsourced to private companies. Most importantly, the IEC must be given a budget that will assist it to constantly engage with the citizens of South
Africa on voter education. We encountered many people who wanted to vote, but who did not know that they had to registered to vote.
All IEC offices must be capacitated with people tasked with voter education. Chairperson, the Department of Home Affairs has a backlog of thousands of people who applied for identity documents, ID's, passports and asylum seekers Most of these people whose lives are hindered by the inefficiency of this department, are black people.
While this department fails to handle matters relating to black people's lives, they were very quick to approve the Fire blade deal which allows a white family to have a private terminal at the Tambo International Airport.
This is similar to the deal that the Department has made with the banks, which allow banks to issue smart card identity documents. This is tantamount to handing over private details of the citizens of this country to a cartel of banks, making our people vulnerable with their details at the hands of foreign agents. The EFF rejects this budget. Thank you.