The following speech was delivered in Parliament’s Appropriation Bill Debate.
Madame Speaker,
The 2019 Appropriations Bill is, unfortunately, a bailout budget. The impact of state capture on Eskom means that South Africans are now being asked to endure public service cuts to bail out what has been stolen by wealthy associates within the leadership of the ANC. A criminal syndicate, which has siphoned away the resources that should have been used to keep lights on.
R17 billion will be allocated to Eskom from the fiscus, as an emergency bailout, with R6 billion more on the way. What are the conditions of this bailout? We were told in Committee meetings that the Minister would announce these conditions – but hitherto it looks like a blank cheque.
Ordinary South Africans are being asked to pay twice for electricity – through their energy bills – and through their taxes. Ordinary South Africans, not the looters and capturers, are being asked to pay back the money. Whenever a parent buys a textbook for their child, a portion of that Value Added Tax (VAT) is being used to bail out captured state-owned entities (SOEs). Whenever a taxi driver refuels his taxi, a portion of the fuel levy is being used to bail out captured SOEs.
So, who is truly suffering to pay for this bailout budget? Commuter trains lose R4.2 billion, municipal Infrastructures lose R1 billion, SASSA sees cuts, Human Settlements will see a cut, special economic zones experience cuts. This is what the fiscal cliff looks like – when public services are forced to endure budget cuts in order to allow the ANC to balance the shortfalls caused by Gupta looting.
The people entrusted to administer this bailout budget are also suspect. Ace Magashule, of Gangster State fame, has been described by the President as ‘his boss.’ If this is the case, then the government is asking Parliament to allow R1.4 trillion of peoples’ money to be administered by a criminal syndicate masquerading as a political party.
A large portion of this budget – 70% of the main appropriation, some R630 billion, are transfers and subsidies. The issue here is that there is poor and ineffective oversight over these transfers and subsidies. Let me use local government to illustrate this point – 14 municipalities illegally deposited R1.5 billion of public money into the Venda Building Society Mutual Bank (VBS) – some of which were transfers from national government – and in a grand act of political irony, VBS gave the public money deposited by the ANC, straight to the EFF.
Madame Speaker, the reaction to VBS being placed under curatorship, and the assault on the independence of the South African Reserve Bank, demonstrates that there is a struggle being waged against our economic institutions by the criminal syndicate masquerading as the governing party. We have a responsibility to fight to ensure that economic sanity prevails, and that the President’s boss, Ace Magashule, is not allowed to print unlimited amounts of money to destroy our economy, as was done in Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
Pulling our economy back from this brink is the struggle that we must now fight. Economic freedom is the freedom to find work and opportunity, to provide for our families, to save for our retirement and live a fulfilled, dignified life, knowing that no criminal syndicate, masquerading as a political party, will be able to destroy our opportunities. This is the economic freedom that has been denied to South Africans for too long. Aluta continua means that the struggle continues – not that the looting should continue.