Chairperson and hon members, the Budget tabled before this Parliament addresses the needs and concerns of a human being. The hon Minister was spot-on to stress that ...
... motho ke motho ga a na bosetlhana.[... a human being is a human being, there is no lesser human being.]
A human being is a human being. There is no lesser human being; whether rich or poor, black or white, local citizen or alien, we all have common needs. We, in the UCDP, have this philosophy ... rata motho, tlotla motho, direla motho, rerisa motho, itshokele motho ... [love, respect, serve, inform and be patient to a person]
... thereby meaning love, respect, serve, consult and be tolerant to a human being. That is the legacy we left where we governed. To us, this Budget does exactly that: for love, it shows how much it cares through the social grants, more allocations for education; for respect, it shows that the Minister listened and showed respect for the views of the people on their concerns about crime, hence resources have been poured into the protection services; for service to the people, the amount thrown into the Fifa World Cup attests to this; and for consulting people, Trevor's Tips are testimony that ... motho ke motho ga a na bosetlhana [a human being is a human being, there is no lesser human being ...] and even concerning issues that the Minister is hard put to handling such as lobola, he has declared that he will consult further.
The tolerant nature of the Budget is displayed in the pains taken to address the question of pensions to avoid the situation where people work for the better part of their active years of life, but retire and go into poverty. The reforms proposed by this Budget would benefit the people, who would otherwise have had no access to cost- effective retirement benefits and eliminate unnecessary hardships among their families.
The cherry on top in this Budget is the fact that the government has come to its senses by introducing bursaries for those who want to train as teachers. The vast amount set aside for education is a clear example that the government accepts that liberation without education is worthless. From this exercise, we hope to have people who will have the necessary skills and manage the booming economy of this country. We only hope that government departments will use this money profitably. Thank you. [Time expired.]