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08 Oct, 2013
Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 30 – Environment
Address by Mr Bantu Holomisa, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 30 – Environment (28 May 2013) Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister and Honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 30. The high incidents of rhino poaching in South Africa over the past few years have been a cause of much embarrassment. More disappointing, however, is to see that South Africa seems incapable of dealing with this problem. State Security has failed to gather intelligence on rhino poaching in South Africa. Such intelligence would enable us to nip this problem in the bud. Rhino poaching has even risen in our transfrontier parks. Every day we read disturbing newspaper reports that rhino poaching has increased in parts of these Parks that are in our neighbouring countries. While noble ideals underpinned the development of these Parks, the rise in rhino poaching in these Parks requires urgent attention. Chairperson, We are duty bound to make environmental issues attractive to the people. This we can do by ensuring that we avoid using arcane academic language and jargon when we talk to our people about environmental issues. More important is that we develop practical solutions to environmental challenges for the public to implement. Some of these solutions include, but are not limited to, packaging environmental solutions with food security initiatives and commercial foresting. People should also be encouraged to engage in tree-planting activities, as indigenous forests play a critical role in protecting homes against natural disasters. I thank you.
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08 Oct, 2013
Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 6 – Performance Monitoring and Evaluation
Address by Mr Bantu Holomisa, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 6 – Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (28 May 2013) Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister and Honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 6. Today, we are debating the Budget Vote of one of Government Departments that has a broad mandate. Used properly, the Department’s mandate could enable it to meaningfully and positively affect the service delivery chain. When this Department was established, its leadership was in a fortunate position in that unlike other well-established departments, it did not inherit employees from previous administrations. It had a rare opportunity to recruit and appoint the right people. Time will tell whether or not the Department put this opportunity wisely. However, the wave of service delivery protests over the past few years are a clear indication that the public sector service delivery chain is full of bottlenecks and inefficiencies. The root cause of these problems can be attributed to poor coordination of government programmes. In other words, the right hand does not know or shows no interest in what the left hand is doing. This lack of coordination often results in a situation where some Heads of Provincial Governments run their provinces as if we are in a federal state. We therefore hope that, in its effort to improve Public Sector Oversight, as one of its key priorities for the 2013/14 fiscal year, the Department pays particular attention to the aforementioned challenges. To conclude, it is my considered view that National Planning and Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation should be merged into one Department. Once this is done, the experienced Minister Trevor Manuel be put in charge of the new Department. This is because logic dictates that a person who develops a plan is better placed to monitor and evaluate its implementation. Furthermore, his National Development Plan impacts directly on the mandate of this Department. I thank you.
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08 Oct, 2013
Budget Vote 26: Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
Address by Mr Lennox Gaehler, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 26: Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (29 May 2013) Chairperson, Minister and Deputy Minister and Honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 26. Since 2009 we have been hoping that we would reach a point where the Minister would successfully turn the Department around and place it on a path to efficiency and effectiveness, but this has thus far proven to be wishful thinking. Instead, the situation in the Department has taken a turn for the worse. For evidence one has to look no further than the fact that, while the Department has spent more 90% of its budget, only 52% of its targets have been achieved. Two questions now come to mind: “Where did the money go? Has it been diverted to President Zuma’s Zero Hunger Programme?” Minister, the public deserves to know what happened to rest of the money. Chairperson, I have received numerous complaints from emerging farmers around the country about the Department’s mechanisation programme. Many of the complaints echo the UDM’s sentiments that it is difficult to accurately determine who benefits from this project when the Department has no policy on the distribution of tractors. The UDM has been calling on the Department to address this problem for a while now without success. We hope the Department will take this matter seriously this time around. Chairperson, Monitoring and evaluation of existing programmes in the Department is very weak, to say the least. For example, every year the Department gives money to provinces in order to ensure the success of the Comprehensive Agriculture Support Programme (CASP), but it does not monitor how the funds have been used and whether they have been used for the intended purpose. To make matters worse, the officials who are in charge of the CASP programme do not reply to complaints from members of the public about the programme. They also fail to reply to our correspondence about it. I thank you.
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08 Oct, 2013
Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 5 – International Relations & Cooperation
Address by Mr Bantu Holomisa, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 5 – International Relations & Cooperation (30 May 2013) Mister Speaker, Ministers and Deputy Ministers and Honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 5. We wish to thank the Department for all the good things it has done. I will however leave the enumeration of the Department’s achievements to its praise singers. During our oversight visit to the Department’s Head Offices in Pretoria at the beginning of the year, we were shocked to learn that the Director General (DG) of the Department and his senior officials had not been briefed about the 2012 agreement to deploy South African troops in the Central African Republic (CAR). Yet they are the first line of defence with respect to our foreign policy. Whilst still on the subject of CAR deployment, could the Honourable Minister take the Nation into confidence and explain operation Morero and its implications? It would be interesting to know whether the President briefed the Honourable Minister timeously about the 2012 CAR deployment. If yes, why did you not brief your DG and his deputies? If not, would you not agree with someone who says that your mandate as the Head of our foreign policy was hijacked? We ask these questions because the President is duty bound to consult with the Departments of Defence, State Security and International Relations as well as Parliament in all foreign military deployments. Could it be that your Department was also bypassed in government’s dubious decision to support regime change in Libya? If this is the norm, then there is a possibility that the Presidency bypassed your Office and gave direct instructions to the Chief of State Protocol, Bruce Koloane during the Guptagate scandal. Would you deny this Honourable Minister? In any event, I am still wondering why a person who is supposed to have delegated powers should require permission from the Executive to authorise the landing of an aeroplane at an unclassified airport. The fact that the Presidency has no portfolio committee leaves the onus is on you, Honourable Minister, to explain these matters to the public. Thank you.
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08 Oct, 2013
Budget Vote 33: Rural Development and Land Reform
Address by Mr Stanley Ntapane, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 33: Rural Development and Land Reform (31 May 2013) Mr Speaker and honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 33. President Zuma announced in the 2013 State of the Nation Address (SONA) that government would reopen the lodgement of claims in order to accommodate those who missed the December 31, 1998 deadline and to accommodate the Koi and San people who were dispossessed of their land prior to the 1913 Land Act. We were too happy to hear this announcement from the President. And as expected, this raised our people’s expectations. However, after scrutinising Government’s track record in processing land claims, we are left wondering whether it has the capacity to deal with new land claims considering that it is still struggling to address the current backlog on outstanding land claims. The Department also has inadequate post-transfer farmer support programmes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the low number of land-reform beneficiaries who are actively farming. And in the majority of cases where there is some agricultural activity, many of the beneficiaries use only a small piece of their land. In addition, an increasing number of farms have become white elephants in the post-transfer period. One such example is a farm in KwaZulu-Natal that used to produce 4000 tons of bananas, which has now become a white elephant. Mister Speaker, We have been receiving complaints from members of the public about the land reform programme. It seems there is a growing perception out there that the majority of land reform beneficiaries are male. We call on the Department to look into this matter and ensure that its land reform programme is line with gender equity policies. We hope that once completed the research report on reopening land claims will, among others, speak directly to these problems. We wish to take this opportunity to commend the Department for all the good work it has done thus far. Thank you.
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08 Oct, 2013
Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 1 – Presidency
Address by Mr Bantu Holomisa, MP in the Parliamentary Debate: Budget Vote 1 – Presidency (12 June 2013) Mister Speaker, honourable President and Deputy President, and honourable Members, The UDM supports Budget Vote 1. We have taken note of Government’s decision to name and shame people who are found guilty of corruption. I would like to join this campaign by sharing with the Nation the negative effect of political directives on government tenders, which create a breeding ground for corruption. You will recall that political directives gave birth to the controversial Arms Deal and other related transactions. For instance, in January this year, Minister Pule received and together with her senior officials from the Department of Communications and Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), approved a half a billion Rand application from Cell C for the rollout of broadband infrastructure at eMalahleni Local Municipality. Shockingly, this application was approved without being subjected to the normal adjudication process as required by Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005. Had it not been for the refusal on the 16th of April 2013 of Mr Mmatlou Morudu, USAASA Executive: Business Development Service, to implement the project after receiving an instruction from his Chief Executive Officer, Mr Zam Nkosi, half a billion Rand would have been released for it. If your Office does not intervene, chances are that Mr Morudu will most probably be removed from his position in order to ensure unrestrained looting of State resources. It is strange that Government was prepared to pay half a billion Rand to this infrastructure at eMalahleni Local Municipality, when it only paid R13 million for the same infrastructure rollout at Msinga Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, a municipality twice the size of eMalahleni Local Municipality. It makes you wonder! Another example of the rampant looting of State resources in this Department involves a multimillion Rand tender awarded to Mthinthe Communications (Pty) Ltd to rollout broadband infrastructure to 120 centres around the country. According to USAASA’s 2012/2013 Exception Report, the total Rand value amount of the 80 per cent subsidy for Mthinthe should have been R 24.1 million but the final Rand value subsidy amount given to Mthinthe was R33.1 million. This means that Mthinthe was overpaid by a whopping R8.9 million. In addition, this lucky company was further paid R2.3 million for the branding of Mpumalanga centres, which was never done. Close scrutiny of the first phase of the project reveals an interesting statistic, that is, 23 out of these 33 sites are in KwaZulu-Natal, while only 8 are in Mpumalanga and 2 in the North West Province. The deadline for the connection of these centres was set for the 31st of March 2013. However, according to USAASA 2012/2013 Exception Report, as at the 7th of May 2013, only 9 out of 120 Mthinthe centres were operational. Conspicuous in this broadband infrastructure rollout programme is the absence of plans for other Provinces. This leaves the children of other Provinces have to fend for themselves in order to get access to computer laboratories with internet connection. We therefore demand that your Government publishes the infrastructure map – with identified areas, kinds of infrastructure (especially broadband) and timelines – so that South Africans can see where this infrastructure development is happening. I thank you.
