Chairperson, when the Minister of Finance tabled the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, MTBPS, in the National Assembly on 27 October 2009, we once again reminded Parliament, and South Africans in general, that this was our statement of intent and that this was a policy statement intended to serve as a mechanism for Parliament to begin the engagement in the Budget process.
As we know, there are three stages at which Parliament can engage with the Budget process, namely that of influencing it, that of exercising oversight over it, and that of holding us to account.
The statement sets out the economic contexts and assumptions that inform the following year's Budget as well as the framework in which the Budget is prepared. It has four components. The first is that of the fiscal framework; the second is that of government's spending priorities; the third concerns the division of revenue among the spheres of government; and the fourth contains the tabulation of all the conditional grants to follow.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the NCOP for the thorough and yet speedy manner in which it has deliberated on the MTBPS. I would like to stress, as I have previously indicated, that this is an important process through which the opinions of the public and civil society can be drawn into the Budget process.
I would like to reaffirm our commitment as government to ensuring that, no matter what the situation, we will never compromise on the five major priorities as outlined in the manifesto of the ruling party. I also note that these priorities received widespread support and that the comments by various groups to the committee reaffirm the correctness of the approach.
I would like to repeat what these priorities are. The first is education, where we are focusing on improving the quality of the foundation phase of education. We are going to strengthen further education and training enrolment and we are also going to place a particular emphasis on teacher development and school-building. The second priority is that of health. Here we have focused particularly on fighting HIV/Aids and tuberculosis, the improvement of hospital management and implementing the National Health Insurance.
The third priority is that of creating sustainable jobs, implementing the framework agreement that government adopted with labour in February this year, accelerating the roll-out of the Expanded Public Works Programme, EPWP, Phase 2, and the reorientation of our business and industrial support measures to support job creation and prevent job losses.
The fourth priority is that of rural development. We want to implement a comprehensive rural development strategy that focuses on raising rural incomes, investment in rural infrastructure, supporting farmers and implementing land reform.
The fifth priority is that of fighting crime and corruption. We are going to focus on better integration in the sector, enhanced IT systems and increasing the number of personnel, particularly detectives and forensic specialists. We are also going to focus on better court case management.
This spending is broadly in line with the priorities and we welcome the suggestions made at the hearing as well as those reflected in the reports of both the Finance and Appropriations committees. We note, in particular, that rural development has featured quite high in that report. Land restitution has also been raised. We will also consider these matters in preparing the Appropriation Bill for next year.
We will also look seriously at proposals around water, at proposals around taking the EPWPs to rural areas, and at proposals supporting our municipalities in building capacity and making sure that service delivery is enhanced.
The issue of savings featured quite prominently in our MTBPS and in the reports. It is clear that there is an in-depth process under way. We have only started and we still have a very long way to go. We indicated that we were able, through savings, to identify R14,5 billion in the national departments and R12 billion in the provinces. This was made possible by making sure that we cut the frills and focus on the core functions of each department. It was also made possible by making sure that we root out corruption and all sorts of maladministration.
This process is about culture change. One of the initiatives involves improving the procurement outcomes. Here, centralising the procurement of some large projects was considered. In this regard, an agreement was struck with the Department of Health in which it was established that we are going to deal with their procurement as our pilot project. We want to reiterate that we need the support and the vigilance of Parliament as an institution in order for us to succeed in this quest.
We think the suggestion of the committee to review the conditions of the municipal infrastructure grant, MIG, is very useful. We will liaise with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to review these conditions. This process has already begun.
We are also concerned about the issue of land restitution. There is a significant gap between the allocated resources and the cost of completing the land restitution process.
We can assure you that we are working with Minister Nkwinti to find ways to complete this process as speedily as possible, given the resource constraints. Most of us agree that the present model is unaffordable and the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform is exploring ways to achieve the same objective, but in a more affordable and cost-effective manner.
The latest employment data indicates that we have now lost close to a million jobs since the onset of the crisis. This is about 7% of the workforce and most of the people who have lost their jobs are young people, domestic workers and people in the informal sector.
Let me indicate that signs of a recovery are beginning to be seen but lots of uncertainty lies ahead. Positive signs can be seen in manufacturing and mining data, but consumption remains weak and business investment is still very low.
We pledge to work with Parliament to develop the capacity to process the MTBPS in terms of the new legislation and the Budget. We are also prepared to look at the timeframes for the Budget to make the parliamentary process more robust and useful. We agree that we need more oversight from Parliament in order to monitor the quality of spending and whether departments are taking measures to reduce costs and improve service delivery.
With these words I once again want to thank the committees for having worked on the MTBPS and want to say that I look forward to its implementation. Thank you. [Applause.]