Transcript of COPE President Mosiuoa Lekota's speech in the debate on the President's State of the Nation Address, National Assembly, Parliament, Cape Town, Tuesday, February 19 2013

Mr MOSIUA LEKOTA: Hon Speaker, hon President, Deputy President, hon members of the House, allow me to dedicate my contribution to this debate to one of the youngest souls in South Africa; a person who, alongside her peers, devoted the majority of her life to solidarity with the workers, peasants and the oppressed of our motherland and continues to do so even today. Mrs Epenette Mamofokeng Mbeki, who celebrated her ninety seventh birthday on Saturday is arguably the great iconic figure of her generation! She is also one of the oldest members of the Congress of the People! [Interjections.] I ask fellow members of the House to join us in wishing her well in the years that lay ahead!

I also wish to place on record our sincere and very deep sadness at the loss of Comrade Phyllis Naidoo who served the cause of freedom and justice at home and around the world. I plead with God that may her soul rest in peace!

Today I would like to invite members of the House and the people our country to join me in a short journey. As early as 2010, the Minister of Finance drew attention to expenditure on compensation on the government's wage bill, which he pointed out, in 2010, claimed 40% of taxpayers' revenue .In 2011 he warned that personnel spending and debt service costs had grown rapidly. In the 2012-13 estimates he pointed out that the wage bill budgeted for was 35%, which in itself was a staggering amount looked at against the backdrop of the national revenue of R967,5 billion.

Consequently, the Minister pointed out that the wage agreement of 2012, which added R37,5 billion over the medium term, would also absorb a large share of additional allocations. This means that the money that had already been budgeted for, services to our people, would now be absorbed by additional salaries to those who walk up and down the passages of government offices, leaving the people with nothing at all. The Minister then went further and promised that, and I quote:

Government will take a more deliberate approach to managing overall employment and wage trends across the public sector, government will curtail unwarranted growth in personnel numbers.

When we came to the state of the nation address here, I expected to hear that government had a plan to act on this urgent and devastating setback. I expected to hear that government, given the advise of the Minister of Finance, would take steps to review the public service, identify those who are redundant, eliminate such positions in staffing and save the nation huge costs. The President said nothing about it.

I expected that I would hear that those who had been employed corruptly, not qualified and were appointed only because they were being rewarded for being members of the ruling party or relatives and so on, would be identified and eliminated them from the public service so that the nation can possess a sleek and trim public service effective and efficient. The savings from such an exercise would then be diverted to providing necessary services to masses of our people in squatter camps, in the rural country sides and so on. The President said nothing about it.

We believe that any one who is committed to fighting corruption must start by eliminating the corrupt act of paying, month after month, individuals who are not qualified but were appointed without any regard to their qualifications and who only consume but are not delivering anything on the agenda of the nation. I have listened to all of these speeches here, good speeches, about what needs to be done. The secret is not in what colourful promises you make. It is in what practical, hard steps you take to convert them into a hard reality that people can benefit from. It is not helpful to make all these colourful promises.

It is quite alarming that the Deputy Auditor-General recently said that government - both national and provincial - had spent more than R102 billion on consultants between 2008-08 and 2010-11 financial years.

A staggering R102 billion spent on consultants because relatives, friends and concubines who are employed have no qualifications to do their work. [Applause.]. It is not my Deputy Auditor-General who said this. It is the government's appointed Deputy Auditor-General who says this is what has been done by your government. So, the Auditor-General also revealed...

The MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: Mr Speaker, I have a question. [Interjections.]

The SPEAKER: Hon Lekota, will you take a question?

Mr M G P LEKOTA: Speaker, if you will give me additional time because this is trick to disrupt my speech.

The SPEAKER: Yes or no, Sir?

Mr M G P LEKOTA: I won't be disrupted.

The MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: It isn't.

The MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATION: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. As the Minister responsible for public service, I wonder who the concubines are that are employed.

The SPEAKER: Continue, Sir.

Mr M G P LEKOTA: Speaker, I hope you will replace the minutes I have just lost. [Laughter.] The Auditor-General also revealed monumental losses as a result of fruitless and futile expenditure. In the 2009-10 to 2010-11 financial years an amount of R45 billion was wasted. The amount of R20 billion in 2009-10 and R25 billion in the 20010-11 was squandered by this government. I sit here and think to myself, had this amount been used for bursaries, some 125 university students could have been funded for over three years. If you gave them half a bursary, 150 000 university students could have been supported and over that time South Africa could have produced civil engineers, mechanical engineers, doctors and so on. But instead what happened to that money? It ended up in the pockets of friends, family and the favoured ones.[Interjections.].

All these corrupt people who are there do not know anything about the work that they are supposed to be doing, let alone to look after the resources of our nation. Billions of rands! This is money! It doesn't fall from the sky. That is what Shabir Shaik asked. Does he think that this money falls from the trees? [Laughter.] So this money is being lost in this way. I am talking about billions of rands. In the meantime there are people who go to bed without food; children are born in shacks in Khayelitsha, in the middle of water in winter. [Interjections.] In the meantime there are old and young, because the money has been squandered by you...

The SPEAKER: Order hon members! Order!

Mr M G P LEKOTA: ... therefore we have to say sadly, hundreds of thousands of deserving students were left without the support they could have got. Likewise, the R200 million that was spent at Inkandla could have been used to give bursaries to 10 000 to 20 000 matriculants. Today those children are walking the countryside of Inkandla, Mthunzini and other areas, without education or any support because one house had to be built for one individual or one family. I still have a question in my mind that I have not been able to answer: Why was former President Nelson Mandela not also given some R200 million? [Applause.][Interjections.] Why was former President Thabo Mbeki not also given R200 million? If Public Works did that, we want an account. Tell us. Let Public Works tell us that it spent similar amounts on former Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.

The time has come and it must come that the ruling party must account for its actions. There cannot be this lack of equality before the law. This situation, where certain individuals load it over the entire nation, cannot be accepted. Otherwise the years we spent in exile, in jail and all of that are worth nothing. [Interjections.][Applause.]

I say again that I will not be silenced. I will not be silenced whilst those who are now privileged forget, that they come from the townships of Soweto, Umlazi and Mdantsane, that they come from nowhere. Now that they have climbed seats of power, they forget the people they left behind; they forget the homes from which they came. They forget their own people. Indeed, they forget that once we sat together in prison, eating mealies promising ourselves that when the day shall come, we will be loyal to the wishes of our people. We will prioritise the people and make sure that there is a better life for all, as former President Mandela first told us in Robben Island and then told us from this podium. A better life for all. Where is that better life for all? Look at our people in OlievenhoutBosch, Diepsloot and Mdantsane; where is the better life for all? Aren't we ashamed of what we have done? What has become of us?

In any event, most significantly, now we are being told that we are going to be taxed some more. But we have not been told. What is government doing to recover the R45 billion lost? They are not telling us about that. They tell us about how much tax we must pay. What are you doing to recover the R45 billion that disappeared. What are you doing now, today to recover our R200 million that went to Inkandla? What are you doing now to ensure that each and every one of these people who are being arrested for corruption pay for that? Instead they get elected to the leadership of the ruling party. They go into the national executive committee and all of that. The NEC is full of people who have stolen this and that, who are involved in the travelgate scandal and so on. [Applause.] But they are all in the national executive. [Applause.] Instead of punishing people who commit crime, the ruling party rewards them with higher positions, not only in the party but also in the government. We must tell these truths. If we do not tell these truths, we will be betraying the young people of our country; generations to come will condemn us. So, I refuse to be silent. [Interjections.]

The Minister will come and set up a commission, well government said he will have to set up a commission to revise our tax and so on. We will have to pay more, but we are not told being what is being done to recover the money that has been lost under the watch of this government. The President has no answers to those issues because he said nothing about them. He went dead quiet about it and spoke about all other things which are irrelevant when it comes to the question of survival of the people.

On the issue of Right2Know Campaign, other things are happening, and I must say these things quickly before the dark days come. The Right2Know campaign has drawn our attention to the fact that the ruling party is pushing for even more secrecy than before. The Right2Know campaign reported on a 2012 survey by the SA History Archive, which facilitates and tracks Promotion of Access to Information Act. Of the 159 requests made, the archive noted that 102 were refused outright or received no reply. The more we ask questions, the more silence we get. That is the government's track record on accountability and transparency.

The SPEAKER: Hon member, your time has expired. [Interjections.]

Mr M G P LEKOTA: Speaker, aren't you going to add a few more minutes? [Laughter.]

The SPEAKER: Order hon member! Your time has expired. [Applause.][Laughter.]You did not lose any time, the clock was paused. [Applause.]

Source: Unrevised transcript, Hansard

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