Speaker, hon Deputy President, hon Deputy Speaker, members of the executive, hon colleagues, I greet you all. Let me start by appreciating the Minister's initiative of tabling this statement. I believe it will help to clarify issues around the framework response to the public and the people affected so that, in turn, those affected can begin to take the necessary steps to provide for their own wellbeing.
In the same breath, I would also like to take this opportunity to applaud government, under the leadership of the President, together with other stakeholders, our social partners, who participated in this agreement process, on their sterling work. It takes people who have themselves experienced such difficulties to be able to adequately respond in the manner you have. In other words, to understand it, you should have lived it. Otherwise you will respond like other members here are responding. This is what we mean when we say: Working together, we can do more.
I also want to remind you that the social partners are also from the business sector, unions and civil society; it is not only government. Therefore, it would be wrong to direct all issues to government, because this is the country's response and the country, through various social partners, have participated in this particular response plan.
The framework response, as reported today, is highly commended and it could not have come at a better time. We all know that the most severely affected in this regard are the previously disadvantaged individuals, those who come from the poorest of the poor communities and backgrounds. Hence, we will urge that the framework response, objectives and intentions are implemented without failure.
From our side, as legislators, we will be following the implementation process and we will help, through our oversight, to ensure that no worker is compromised by either government bureaucracy or the companies concerned, under the training lay-off scheme.
We appreciate the fact that no additional money is going to be transferred to the training lay-off scheme from the National Revenue Fund. This is due to government's appreciation for the fact that we are already in a recession and cannot continue to overburden the government fiscus and should rather use flexible means to achieve the intended goal. This is applauded and should be encouraged, especially due to the fact that amongst the participants were stakeholders from the civil society who ordinarily would have expected government to foot the bill without any compromise.
We also request the Minister and the task teams involved in the crafting of this response plan to ensure that the process after the companies' applications is not derailed or does not take longer than anticipated, and that Setas' courses must respond to our economy's needs.
We are excited about the fact that the implementation of the plan will start as early as September this year, and that there are companies that have already applied for both the training lay-off schemes and the IDC's stimulus fund for the distressed sectors.
We need, as the House, to support this initiative and this particular response plan, because our role is to ensure that that plan gets implemented. We should, therefore, strengthen our oversight role so that the timelines, as set by government and its social partners, are met without any failures. I want to conclude by commending the steps taken, especially against those who are defrauding customs. Halala, government! Continue with the good work. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.