Hon Chair, in the Budget Vote, we illustrated to both the Minister and the Deputy Minister that there is no adequate intragovernmental and intergovernmental co-ordination of industrial policy and economic policy, and that all these policy instruments are scattered all over. They said they were going to educate us. However, no education was provided because they thought and believed that you can co-ordinate industrial policy at Cabinet level. That is not possible. That is just basic logic.
We agreed that the department is neither relevant nor necessary any longer. The entity which is already under its supervision, the Small Enterprise Finance Agency, is going to Small Business Development. Logically, the Industrial Development Corporation, IDC, should go to the department that co-ordinates industrial policy.
The remaining entities, the Competition Commission and the one that deals with international investments, must obviously go to Trade and Industry. We do not understand why the Department of Economic Development should continue to exist as an independent and autonomous Ministry when it can be integrated into mainstream government functions so that there is a coherent implementation of industrial policy.
If you are serious about the implementation of industrial policy, collapse the department and beef up the committees here in Parliament, particularly Trade and Industry, and the others, with the comrades who are deployed there. Both Ebrahim Patel and Madala Masuku could do very well, considering what had happened there. So, really, let us dissolve the department and take the struggle of industrial development forward. Thank you very much.