Your Excellency the President, your Excellency the Deputy President, hon Ministers, hon Deputy Ministers, hon Members of the House, we find ourselves faced with great difficulty in properly exercising our parliamentary duties as they relate to the approval of the budget of the Presidency, which is before us today. We are here to scrutinise whether the amount of money to be allocated to the Presidency for the next year is adequate and sufficient in relation to the strategic plan submitted to Parliament. As we do this, at the same time we review whether the funds allocated last year were adequately spent. This is of course a process which Parliament undertakes in respect of all other departments. This process takes place within portfolio committees, which go through how last year's money was spent and interrogate how next year's money is intended to be spent.
However, when it comes to the ever-increasing budget of the Presidency, we are not enabled to perform any such review, control or scrutiny because this Parliament has steadfastly refused to establish a portfolio committee on the Presidency. We are faced with having to approve today a budgetary allocation for the Presidency without any work having been done in any portfolio committee to interrogate what this figure means. All we know is that it has skyrocketed beyond anything one would have expected just a few years ago. This is an untenable and impossible situation. It is not just Parliament that is being disempowered by the lack of a portfolio committee on the Presidency, but it is also the people of South Africa who are being disempowered as we are merely their elected representatives.
The fundamental principle of "no taxation without representation" has been weakened. Also, the Presidency has been weakened by the lack of a portfolio committee. All of us have experience of how interaction between a portfolio committee and the relevant Minister ends up strengthening the ministerial function, the Minister himself and delivery by the relevant department. Every time a Minister comes to Parliament, he or she leaves enriched by the exchanges with the portfolio committee. However, there is no such a thing for the Presidency. Why is that? It is not that the Presidency does not need strengthening and guidance. On the contrary, we all realise that the Presidency could benefit from stronger interaction with Parliament.
In the past years, the role of the Presidency has become broader and broader. It began with former President Mandela, who located within the Presidency the Reconstruction and Development Programme, thereby placing within the Presidency the function of driving social and economic development at a macro level. This has now flourished into a placing of the National Planning Commission within the Presidency, which has been tasked with defining a plan and a policy framework for the whole of the country for all the departments for the next 30 years. This is no minor task.
Both the planning and the performance monitoring functions are inherently executive functions which, if not placed within the Presidency, would be exercised by one or more departments, which would be subjected to the oversight function of a portfolio committee and would have a constant beneficial interaction with such a committee. However, at this juncture, they are taken out of the accountability that comes when Parliament exercises its oversight function. Exercising the oversight function is not a matter of choice. It is in fact a duty expressly cast upon us by the Constitution. In the absence of a portfolio committee on the Presidency, we are falling short of abiding by our duty to exercise this function.
The same applies to the fact that functions of the Presidency have now increasingly expanded in respect of the direct management of ever- increasing portions of our international relations, which are handled directly by the President, who participates in meetings of the G20, African Union and SADC while having direct personal contact with a number of world leaders.
Parliament is greatly impoverished by not being able to interact with the director-general, for instance, in the office of the Presidency on these and other matters. The IFP has raised this grave institutional shortcoming at this podium for many years, and it cannot really understand why there is an obstinate refusal to do what is constitutionally required and politically necessary to strengthen Parliament, the President, accountability and our democracy. Therefore, we speak today without the benefit of having interrogated many of the questions we have and against the backdrop of a general negative perception of the President. The general perception is that the President has failed to provide the necessary leadership in giving policy direction and dealing with many problems faced by our country in a timely, effective and competent manner. That is, of course, a perception and not a reality about the issue. As long as there is no accountability of the kind that I am speaking about here today, it will be so.
Even in respect of small things, which often reveal the status of big things, we cannot help but notice how correspondence is not answered and promises are not kept. In respect of big issues, we cannot but point to the failure of the Presidency to exercise leadership on all the issues that matter, ranging from the economy to unemployment, corruption, failure to deliver essential services, and the lack of a vision for the future of the country.
I wish to congratulate His Excellency the President and the government for having what the President has stated as the largest HIV/Aids health programme in the world. However, now we have a crisis in South Africa where there is a shortage of ARVs in six out of nine provinces. That is a very serious crisis. This echoing criticism is not answered by creating more processes, institutions, workshops, summits and commissions. Indeed, that is an old technique used to cover impotence, lack of vision and lack of political resolve. He who knows what to do just does it.
The hon Speaker and the Chief Whip are also my witnesses that in Johannesburg, during Africa Day, I stated that the IFP supports the candidature of the hon Dr Zuma as chairperson of the AU Commission. However, in the same breath, I wish to appeal to His Excellency, through you, hon Deputy Speaker, that he should please appoint a trained policeman as the National Commissioner of Police because experimenting by deploying comrades has been a dismal failure. [Applause.]
He who doesn't, throws a problem into a sandbox, letting sufficient people kick it around in the hope that someone, somehow, will kick it hard enough to crack some of the solution. Our country is facing too many and too great challenges to be governed in this fashion.
In 1994, the world looked upon South Africa in great expectation, admiration and approval. By the time the 20th anniversary of our liberation comes, the world, including many of our countries in Africa, will be looking on South Africa with disappointment, concern and disapproval. How did we come to this? Unfortunately, it is in the Presidency where the buck stops. That is why the President has given us an overview of what government is trying to do in all the departments.
However, we have suffered policy schizophrenia, trying to pursue all policies in spite of them being at odds with one another. We are trying to promote economic growth while pursuing a number of social programmes and policies, including the expansion of an untenable welfare state, which are at odds with economic growth. We have committed ourselves to promoting world-class infrastructure, and yet none of our infrastructure has been prioritised. Instead, it has fallen below even the highest standards in Africa. Even in respect of our internet capability, we are behind four other African countries, Nigeria being far ahead of us. The same applies to our ports and harbours, railways, electricity supply, education system and all that forms the backbone of both our economy and our social fabric.
The same lack of leadership has emerged in respect of crucial issues such as traditional leadership, where the actual policies implemented by the government over the past 18 years have been at odds with its political understanding and even the constitutional imperative. We cannot continue to run a country saying one thing and doing another or, even worse, saying everything in the hope of pleasing everyone while often doing nothing in the hope that things will come right by themselves. We need a profound change in the way the Presidency operates. The President can no longer be a figurehead and a point of political reference. The Presidency must become an actual engine of work, policy and delivery. To this extent, it requires an active and constant interaction with a parliamentary portfolio committee.
Let me reiterate what I have said before. I will always support the President and government when they do the right thing for the people of South Africa. Yes, of course, I am a leader of an opposition party. But I can assure them that I have no sinister plans that would warrant the bugging of my phone, for instance. I can assure the President and the government that I am not a threat to the state to warrant the bugging of my cellular phone.
Intelligence sources have leaked information that my phone is bugged even now, just as it was the case before 1994. I am at a loss to know why. I must say, though, that the job of the spies would be much easier if my home landline was reinstated. I haven't had the luxury of a home phone since I was the Minister of Home Affairs eight years ago. There is no phone in KwaPhindangene. I start looking back at the time when I was in Cabinet and ask myself if it was for the same reasons that I was given two spooks - Mr Billy Masetlha and Mr Barry Gilder - as directors of my department. [Laughter.]
I would like to end by assuring the President of the Republic, my Deputy President, members of Cabinet and Members of Parliament that I am not a danger to the state or to anyone's life in South Africa, and in KwaZulu- Natal in particular. The IFP supports the Presidency Vote. [Applause.]