Honourable Speaker,
GOOD supports the attempts to get SA out of the debt trap but its time for government to stop talking and start implementing its plans.
When implementing, it is critical to consider how we could spend our hard-earned cash better.
We are reassured by the increase of R1.2 billion to the Department of Home Affairs to improve services; of increases to growth-creating infrastructure and of budget cuts that seem to indicate more efficiencies in some departments.
But we are concerned by some of the budget cuts to Basic Education, Health and SAPS. These are very important delivery departments, and we need to mitigate the impact of the cuts on service delivery.
We need to ensure that the crime fighting capacity of our police is increased especially to fight gender based violence.
Honourable Speaker;
We cannot fix this country if we carry on bailing out mismanaged, corrupt SOEs.
The bailouts are happening at the expense of the people of this country.
We need to take action to stop the bleeding.
Government bail outs are very expensive band aid plasters that don’t address the cause of the infection.
It is time to take serious action on Eskom, SABC and the SAA.
I thank you.