Chair, I rise on behalf of my colleague, the hon Dr Mario Oriani-Ambrosini.
We are critical of this department that we see as a department of welfare for traders and industrialists rather than a department for the promotion of trade and industry. We wonder how much longer it will take before it is recognised that welfare policies do not promote economic growth.
Economic growth is happening north of our boundaries in countries such as Botswana and Zambia that have adopted the type of pro-business and free market-based approach which the IFP has been appealing for decades. This department should be the grand advocate of business concerns within the collegial thinking of Cabinet, but it is not. It goes along with the mindset of a welfare state that will never become a developmental state.
Under its umbrella responsibilities, in terms of the Industrial Policy Action Plan, Ipap, this department should make its voice heard on a variety of issues and should do so publicly, loudly and effectively, but it has not done so, remaining meek and weak.
It should have proclaimed to the Minister of Finance the madness of the obsolete and absurd Exchange Control Act, which makes it a nightmare for foreigners to do business in our country. It should have criticised the Minister of Home Affairs for the new immigration regulations, as these are also an expression of policies having been derailed as they stop those wanting to settle in our country.
Closer to home, the department should have more openly welcomed the IFP's Private Member's Bill introduced by Dr Ambrosini - the Medical Innovation Bill - which promotes the legislation for and regulation of cannabis for commercial and industrial purposes. This Bill ticks all the boxes in that it promotes a viable product with a varied domestic and international market, within a framework in which we can finally use co-operatives, both as ground-level and as second-tier co-operatives. Cannabis is the perfect product to show the viability of the newly established co-operatives, and yet not a single word of public support has come from this department, in spite of the country having intensely debated the issue for six months.
The examples could have multiplied, but have not. Further to the point, this department has yet to find the inspiration, courage and ideological fortitude to do its job and be the countervailing force to the prevailing policies driven by labour and welfare considerations.
This department should have raised its voice when the Minister of Land Affairs allowed the publication of the draft policy forcing the gratuitous transfer of 50% of farmland from owners to tenants, something that has placed an entire segment of our economy in disarray.
It should have spoken out against the continuously disastrous role of the South African Airways, whose monopoly and trade practices have undermined tourism, one of our few viable industries.
It should have continued to demand the reform of the Labour Relations Act to introduce maximum flexibility in the labour market so that South Africa may become productive and competitive throughout its territory, and not only in designated special economic zones. [Interjections.] All this and much more this department should have done, but did not, and under its present leadership ...