Thank you, Speaker and hon Deputy President. Following your response I just want to get clarity on the 2,6% of vacant posts. When you interact with the departments and see the reports, you actually see a different picture from the 2,6% in vacant posts that you referred to. You see more than that percentage. I just wanted to clarify that point.
Secondly, has any evaluation been done with respect to the bloated wage bill in this economic climate? We already have 40% of the GDP being used for this expenditure. Will more posts mean that there will be less money available for other expenditure? Are we not going back to the voluntary severance packages, VSPs, that we had before - where government had to drive a programme of reduction of personnel - because the wage bill is increasing? If so, what is the response of the government to that?