Hon Chairperson, hon members, guests, comrades and compatriots ...
... ke a le dumedisa. Dumelang! [... I greet you all. Greetings!]
Sanibonani! [Greetings!]
Hon Chair, I must say it is nice to be back home away from home. I see you have also improved your Rules to allow points of clarity. I must say, in our legislature that becomes a point of disorder because you are disturbing a member when he is still delivering a good speech. That was Comrade Papo.
It is indeed a great privilege for me to make a contribution in this august House on the occasion of debating the Division of Revenue Bill of 2010, in the year which the ANC has declared as the year of working together to speed up service delivery to the people.
Let me take just a short left.
Sihlalo ohloniphekile, ngizwe uMnumzane Lees lapha, ekhuluma okunye okuyindida. Uma eqala uthe, uMphathiswa ulisike kahle lelikhekhe, lendlaleka kahle. Eseqhubeka nenkulumo yakhe ... [Hon Chairperson, I heard Mr Lees here saying something confusing. When he started he said the Minister sliced this cake and allocated it perfectly. When he continued with his speech ...]
... he then criticised that there is unacceptably more allocation to social welfare, which is there to address the downtrodden people left in the lurch by the apartheid regime. In short, the DA is saying: let us cut the social grants, poverty alleviation programmes and other means and measures that are there to assist and uplift the previously disadvantaged people who were oppressed by the previous regime. Now I understand the reason that the DA- led Cape Metropolitan Municipality decided to build toilet pans without walls and call them toilets.
Noma sekuthiwa kusobala kangakanani, ngeke sithi ogogo nomkhulu bethu abayohlala endle kungenazindonga kulezi zinto abazibiza ngokuthi yizindlu zangasese. [No matter how logical it may seem to be, we cannot expect our grandmothers and grandfathers to go and relieve themselves where there are no walls - in the so-called toilets.]
I tried to listen attentively - because listening is a skill - to what hon De Villiers was saying. The only thing I could hear in the time allocated by this august House which was progressive on his part is that tax money is now moving closer to the people with this Division of Revenue Bill. I think in that he is coming closer to the ANC, and I thank him for that. I must also advise him that we expect the Western Cape government and the Cape Metro to put this into practice; to deal with the squalor of the conditions in which our people find themselves in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and other areas.
I must further say that I could really not make any sense when he spoke about federalism. One of my English teachers told me that if something is not making sense, it is nonsense. What I know is that South Africa is a unitary country. Constitutionally, what we believe in is co-operative governance, as stipulated in Chapter 3 of the Constitution, whereby the three spheres of government are expected to complement each other rather than to compete against each other.
I must then say that this 2010 Division of Revenue Bill, which is being tabled and is going to be adopted today, is indeed in conformity with Chapter 3 of the Constitution. As such, to this end, this Bill put into practical terms and financial logic the affirmation of section 40 of our Constitution when it says:
In the Republic, government is constituted as national, provincial and local spheres of government, which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated.
Clearly, this 2010 Division of Revenue Bill is crafted and anchored within the context of achieving the five major priorities as set out in the 2009 Manifesto of the ANC, which are designed to impact positively on the lives of the people of this country, as we continue to wage the struggle for a more nonracial, nonsexist and a democratic society.
As a representative of Mpumalanga province, which is one of the rural provinces, you should not be surprised that we are particularly pleased about the fact that this division of revenue is also pro-rural in its nature. Hence, we support the passage of this Bill unreservedly.
This is in line with our manifesto goals, which place rural development as a key priority focus within the context of rebuilding the potential for rural sustainable livelihoods. This prioritisation of rural development is particularly expressed by the Bill through the fact that attention was drawn to the rising allocation to municipalities in both the local government equitable share transfers and the municipal infrastructure grant, MIG, which contribute to the capacity of municipalities to maintain water infrastructure.
Again, we note that measures have also been taken to increase the Expanded Public Works Programme Incentive Grant to smaller and rural municipalities over the 2010 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, period.
Finally, that funding has also been set aside on the Department of Water Affairs' Budget Vote to accelerate progress in bringing water and associated economic opportunities to rural areas. In Mpumalanga we are well on course, notwithstanding the challenges to address these water issues in our communities through our flagship programme called Water For All.
We are also pleased to note and accept the new Expanded Public Works Programmes Grant for the social sector that will subsidise nonprofit organisations, so that they can pay salaries to care workers currently working voluntarily on social and health-care related matters in our communities. Our people have expressed great appreciation, during our public hearings, to the government for introducing this grant. This intervention will go a long way, especially in poor and rural communities, where nonprofit organisations have relied on volunteers to carry out some of the socioeconomic difficulties faced by our communities without any remuneration.
We would like to support and align ourselves with the view which suggests that steps should be taken, that procedures for shifting of funds and rollovers from municipalities back to the national government should not disadvantage poor performing municipalities and priority should be given to supporting structures to assist such municipalities.
In this regard, we think the view that we should develop procedures that are specifically aimed at both strengthening capacity-building, support for poor performing municipalities and linking initiatives to withhold stock or reallocate grants to specific interventions to address capacity constraints should be applauded.
We strongly uphold this view, because continuous shifting of funds and rollovers back to national government and best performing municipalities could be tantamount to taking from the poor to subsidise the rich. We are particularly pleased as the ANC that this division of revenue is really going to assist our people as we speed up service delivery.
Yes, the President of the country has made a clarion call for our government at all levels to work differently; to work harder, faster and smarter within the context of understanding that this is a year of action. Again, Comrade President Jacob Zuma, when closing the 2010 ANC national executive council lekgotla, said, "In our work, therefore, we should prioritise the people and we must improve on citizen care."
This also moves in line with what the late president of the ANC, O R Tambo, said when he was delivering a speech when awarded an honorary degree in law on 19 October 1991, in Fort Hare:
South Africa needs to believe in our capacity to overcome our painful history; to begin again and to regard our failures, when they occur, not as finite moments, but as occasions for a new beginning.
I thank you. [Applause.]