Thank you, Chairperson. The UCDP supports the reduction of the departmental budget from R5,5 billion to R5,3 billion for this financial year. The focus should remain on the department's core activities. That is why the departmental allocation to the programmes responsible for these activities has increased. With the upgrading of the departmental information, communication and technology infrastructure and the occupation of the department's new head office campus, we expect improvement in service delivery as well as savings for this department.
We quote President Zuma in his state of the nation address when he said, and I quote:
Working with Africa and the rest of the world, we will pursue African advancement and enhanced international co-operation. We will ensure sustainable resource management and use.
We would, therefore, like to applaud South Africa for strengthening the AU, for ensuring the success of the Nepad, for promoting regional integration through SADC, and its representation in the Pan-African Parliament, PAP, as well as the hosting thereof.
Nevertheless, we believe the building of the head office for the Pan- African Parliament is also going to take a big slice from the budget of this department, and we believe monitoring could help in order that any delays shouldn't spell out an escalation in extra budget for this project.
As we look into this department, we also want to say that it is the department in which many activities will be taking place, activities that are international, and we would like the communication promoting these events to be looked into as well as minimising whatever budget that could be used for it.
With these few words, we would like to applaud this department for having a quite unqualified audit opinion from the Auditor-General, and we support this Budget Vote. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]