Note to Editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by DA Shadow Minister in the Presidency, Sejamothopo Motau MP, during the Budget Vote on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.
Honourable Chairperson,
The budget allocated to the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in the 2014/15 financial year was a mere R208.2 million.
In a short three years, that budget has ballooned to R923.4 million for 2017/18 – a mere whisker short of the R1 Billion target the department seems to have imposed on itself.
This allocation includes R442 million for National Youth Development and R54.5 million for National Planning Coordination.
This is a substantial amount of money. For this reason, during a recent portfolio committee meeting to discuss the department’s annual performance plan, officials came under severe criticism from the DA.
The committee expressed the view that the country was not getting value for this huge amount of money and questioned the need for the existence of the department.
This echoes the previous sentiments expressed by the DA.
The DA is of the view that most of the work done by the DPME could be done by line function managers in their various departments.
The committee also finally acknowledged that there were overlaps and duplications between the DPME and the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). These overlaps will now be investigated. There should be coordination and where necessary they must be eliminated as they are costly.
The DA has warned that the rapid expansion of the DPME smacked of empire building and would only serve to deepen the ANC’s network of cronyism by opening up further underserved opportunities for cadre deployment. This indeed seems to be the case.
We now learn from a newspaper article titled, “Government policy change on the cards,” by Sunita Menon (Business Day, 11 May 2017), that the executive authority of the DPME, Minister Jeff Radebe, is compiling a Budget Priorities Report to align the 2018/19 budget and the National Development Plan. The report is to be presented at the mid-year Cabinet lekgotla.
According to the article, “The department and the Presidency would create a paper outlining the priorities for the coming fiscal year, and the Treasury would lead the standard allocation”.
However, the DPME’s acting Director General, Tshediso Matona, was reported as saying that “the compilation of the document marked a significant policy shift for the government”.
What is going on here?
Could this be the real reason why former Finance Ministers Nhlanhla Nene and Pravin Gordhan and former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas were so viciously purged by President Jacob Zuma from National Treasury?
Was the ill-considered firing done to have a pliable Finance Minister at Treasury, so that the Presidency, that is President Zuma, would have a free hand to determine budget allocations, as per his “presidential prerogative”?
Honourable Minister Radebe, this Parliament and the people of this country want to know: Is there a state policy shift with regard to the budgetary process? Is this part of capturing National Treasury by President Zuma?
The DA wants to warn that invoking the National Development Plan (NDP) to justify such a policy shift will not save South Africa from a fate worse than a down-grade to junk status by the international rating agencies, if the intention is for the President to interfere in budget allocations to suit his whims.
National Treasury and this Parliament must resist any such interference to protect the economy and the people of this country.
As indicated earlier, the DA remains unconvinced about the need for a Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation. Eliminating the DPME would go some way towards rationalising the bloated Cabinet and cutting costs. Of course, when the DA takes over national government, most of the unnecessary departments would disappear. Billions of rands will be saved in this way.
Which leads to a question that the DA has asked before: What role does the National Planning Commission have in facilitating the implementation of NDP 2030 to achieve the set targets?
There are about 13 years left before we reach the target date, and hardly any of the set goals are likely to be achieved. The country is nowhere near the target of 11 million jobs by 2030. We are nowhere near achieving the target of a five percent annual economic growth, social cohesion and nation building are floundering.
What cost benefit will the country derive from the R54.5 million set aside for National Planning Coordination?
All we see is Ministers and officials holding co-ordination imbizos and talk shops that provide a platform for ANC political speeches. This is a zero-for-money exercise.
Honourable Members, while the DPME receives budget allocations, the department should remain lean, efficient and productive – and deliver bang for the buck.
In this regard, the department should assert its role in assisting the President to assess the performance of Ministers, as the portfolio committee has urged.
In reply to a question I asked him about the performance and delivery agreements signed by Ministers and the President, Minister Radebe, replied, in part as follows:
“There is no legal framework for performance agreements between the President and Ministers….The way in which the President deals with unsatisfactory performance of his Ministers is a matter between him and the Ministers.”
In plain English, this means that the President can do as he pleases in this regard.
This was demonstrated during the recent midnight Cabinet reshuffle by the President. Clearly, merit and performance were not considerations in his bizarre decisions, with one or two exceptions.
Such Presidential recklessness is unacceptable as it seriously jeopardises the stuttering economic growth plaguing this country.
More than 9 million unemployed South Africans are poor and desperate for work. “Presidential prerogative” should not be allowed to gamble with their economic lives and the future of their children.
Unless this situation is meaningfully changed so that Ministers and the President can be truly held accountable, these performance agreements will remain but a sham.