Issued by: African National Congress
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY
Speech by Dumisani Makhaye, ANC Member of KwaZulu Natal Legislature and Chairperson of The Finance Committee, on the Department of Finance Vote.
Date: 3 June 1998.
The Chairperson,
At the beginning of this Session the Finance Committee presented its report to this House. I have no word to add or subtract to that Report. I believe it was an objective and honest appraisal of the financial situation prevalent in KwaZulu Natal. This House will very soon pronounce on that Report.
For the first time our Report used the performance measures or tools which were adopted by this House when we adopted last year's Report of the Finance Committee which contained time-frames for implementation of some aspects of the Report. When the House, including Members of the Executive who occupy that station by virtue of being members of this House first and foremost, unanimously adopted that Report, including the time-frames, this House assumed its ownership and was then binding to all of us including the Executive. Obviously, there was reaction from Members of the House to that Report. The Finance Committee appreciates that reaction. There were moments when I was confused whether the Finance Committee was expected to simply type the views of the Executive and parrot them in this House. Perhaps we were expected to say there was no over-expenditure of R1,9 billion in the last financial year. We were supposed to say everything was perfect. We will never lie to this House, our people and our consciences. Let me be emphatic on this: I WILL NEVER CHAIR SUCH A COMMITTEE!
There were also those Members of the House, fortunately very few of them, who their manhood or womanhood having deserted them, tried to evenly distribute the blame for financial crisis equally among all of us.
Perhaps this was in the name of collective responsibility. But the blame must be put where it really belongs. There can be no collective responsibility without personal responsibility. There must be personal bitternes when the task is not properly performed. We must demand personal accountability. The response of the Minister for Finance, the Honourable Peter Miller, who informed this House that in fact the concerns and recommendations of the Finance Committee were the concerns and recomendations of the Executive were reassuring that there was no sinister political agenda in the Finance Committee Report. The comments of the Premier when he was asked to "make any other comment" towards the end of the business of the day, were also re- assuring.
We are all agreed, and the National Government does agree with us, that we are not as yet receiving an equitable share of the National Revenue.
The political will, mechanisms and processes are in place to ensure that justice is done in that direction. But let us remind ourselves of what we have received from the National Government in the last four years:
1994/5-R11,68 billions 1995/6-R13,3 billions 1996/7-R14,5 billions 1997/8-R15,4 billions 1998/9-R17,4 billions
Surely, this is no pocket money. In the course of debates, many colleagues have nauseatingly over-emphasised the problem of underfunding. There are some who almost suggested that it was unnecessary to look after the funds we receive from the National Government because they were too little. All they wanted was more and more funds. Only then could we think of properly managing our funds. That would be the hight of irresponsibility.
I repeat, we must demand equitable funding but we must never use the lack of it as an apologia for subjective weaknesses. We must agree that it was not the lack of equitable funding that led to mismanagement of of the implementation of Volunteer Severance Packages. It is not the Honourable Trevor Manuel who is the cause of massive corruption. In some departments we still lack value for money. Such excuses have even blurred our great achievements as a province. We can proudly account of what we have achieved with R60 billions.
We can talk of many roads criss-crossing the hills and valleys of our province built in the last four years. We can talk of more than 100 clinics dotting the surface our province bringing health services to our poorest of the poor. We can point at the growth in development and tourism.
We can say with pride that the aged and the infirmed are now receiving a better service nor can we forget that under the programme of Good Governance and the anti-corruption drive, we are putting our house in order. The crisis in education is not a crisis of failure but a crisis of achievement. Education, irrespective of many subjective weaknesses, is becoming more and more accessible to our people. Those who refuse to be deployed to areas of need are creating a crisis in this sphere.
There are those who think to resolve the education crisis, we must again limit the accessibility of education to our people, especially Africans. That is criminal thinking. The local government is up and running. There is hope looming vividly in the eyes of our people. Let us not through pessimism fail them.
Recognising some of our achievements, we must not be lulled into thinking that we have done everything necessary and possible. Our achievements must be a clarion call to do even better. They must be regarded as spring-boards to greater successes.
To do this, there are some fundamental things that we must do. The problems concerning the transfers between the Works Department and client departments especially Education and Culture, Health and Social Welfare must be resolved immediately. The active involvement of the Provincial Treasury and the Premier and his Cabinet in the solution of this problem is urgent. The buck stops with the Premier and his Cabinet.
There must be a clearly defined programme of capacity building in each and every department especially in finance matters. The situation demands greater involvement of political heads in the finances of their departments. It may be necessary that financial advisers are made available to Ministers. The output may outweigh the cost. That means that there must be greater investment in functions of finance control, internal audit and early warning systems. The employment of the financial expert by the Department of Transport has made an immediate positive impact in that department. The Finance Department must play a more visible role in ensuring that all the provincial departments have the capacity in financial matters.
The Treasury and the Department of Finance must eliminate the provincial over-draft as a priority. This over-draft is costing the province rather too much.
There must be a collective political will from both the Legislature and the Cabinet that mismanagement of funds and overspending by any department will be severely punished irrespective of the party political affiliation of the culprit. We must be merciless on this. The province must continue to demand the tool to deal with the blown out bureaucracy in order to control personnel expenditure. Of course, this tool can only be used through negotiations with relevant stake- holders like the unions. It is important that we extend a hand of friendship and co-operation with unions. We must not wait until there is a crisis. We must cultivate the spirit that the Government and unions are partners in achieving a better life for all our people. Of course, the government and workers as employers and employees respectively, cannot avoid struggle between them. But the government in order to be an employer it must first employ the employees. For the workers to be government employees, they must be employed by the government. Therefore the government and government employees while constantly in struggle with each other, they must also co-exist with each other.
The relation between the two is that of unity and struggle of opposites.
The buck on financial matters may lie on the door-step of the Cabinet and their Accounting Officers. But it also lies with the Legislature through its Committees. The Finance Committee will this financial year implement the decision of this House to organise Quarterly Budget Reviews to ensure that Departments operate within their budgets. This will be an additional measure to usual monitoring of monthly expenditure of departments.
We do not encourage adversarial relations between portfolio committees and their relevant department nor do we encourage a situation where Portfolio Committees become mere public relations bodies of the departments. They must take the monthly expenditure of their departments seriously. They must make use of their constitutional right to be involved in the preparation of their departmental budgets from the beginning. It is not sufficient to be told at the end of the budget process and accept them as fait accompli. The dynamic co-ordination between the Finance Committee and other Portfolio Committees must be reworked out and improved. It is not enough that the only sight of co-ordination is in the Chairpersons Committee meetings.
Lastly, Chair, we must remember that the measurement for good governance does not lie in how much political rhetoric do you make nor does it lie in how much noise do you make about the lack of funding. It lies in whether you can optimally use the funds available, deliver to the people without overspending your budget. Thank You!