We would like to express gratitude for work done by the Department of Sport, Arts & Culture. Mobile libraries in rural areas are being set up with the necessary facilities for suppliers to connect with the Central Supplier Database from the National Treasury. It is these types of initiatives that we need in order to advance regional economies and it addresses the concern that SME development is being centralised in the Frances Baard district.

However, I must place on record the concerns of the Democratic Alliance that funding to the Economic Growth and Development Fund will be slashed. Almost R36 million will be taken over the next three years. The Fund is meant to be the main vehicle for the empowerment of SMEs. We have been vocal in the past about the effectiveness and failures of the Fund, as it has operated as a slush fund to promote political and personal interests. But the solution this is not to reduce its funding, but to improve governance.

The fact that 8.9 million South Africans are without jobs and SMEs continue to suffer from overregulation and unkept promises makes it absolutely important for us to champion entrepreneurship as an apex priority. It is common cause that only the SME sector can create entry level jobs on a massive scale, which we require in South Africa.

The evidence reveals that the Fund is ineffective. It measures impact by the number of businesses supported and not their long term growth and survival rates. Its strategic objectives are to increase this and that, but not by any measurable metric.

This box-ticking approach fails to measure turnover, profit, jobs created, taxes paid, patents registered, exports, etc. In other words, things that are tangible and making a real contribution to the economy.

A growing and inclusive economy will not come from throwing money at SMEs and hoping some will make it big. Any effective and sustainable effort to support entrepreneurship and help create a nation of small businesses will have our full support.

Allow me to commend the Northern Cape Tourism Authority for being a model of good governance in the province. To my mind, this entity has set an excellent precedence of good governance in the province that must be followed by other provincial public entities and even departments.

May I also take this opportunity to commend you, MEC, for your unprecedented and prompt action in calling for nominations for new members of the Northern Cape Liquor Board. I respectfully submit that people who were previously appointed to this Board did not appreciate the important role of this public entity. The people who will be appointed must appreciate that alcohol is potentially a very dangerous substance; that alcohol is associated with many social evils and, more importantly, the history of alcohol consumption in South Africa: how it was used by the apartheid regime to control black people.

Under the previous Board, an exceptionally high number of liquor licenses were approved. This is despite the fact that the Northern Cape has the highest Foetal Alcohol Syndrome rate in the world at the relevant time. In fact, Roodepan and Galeshewe were recently found to have the highest FAS rate in the world by FARR.

The Northern Cape Gambling Board is another entity that rears its ugly head of impunity in the broader scheme of things. It is an established principle of our law that if a person fails to renew a license within a stipulated period, the license expires. Simple as that and no exceptions. But this was not the case with the Leithlo Casino license in Kuruman. The license expired and was unlawfully renewed by the previous board.

This is not good governance. In fact, the conditions of the license have also been changed unlawfully by the licensee. This is what we call licensed theft. Surely somebody must be held accountable for this gross failure of governance.

The composition of the current Board appears not to be in accordance with section four of the Northern Cape Gambling Act. Moreover, the appointment of the current CEO of the board also appears to be irregular. I have had very fruitful interactions with the MEC in this regard and I am quite confident that you will address these matters.

We welcome the proposed rationalisation of public entities and NCEDA should not be an exception to this process. We have previously called for the dissolution of NCEDA, merging it with the Economic Growth and Development Fund and redirecting the money to the said Fund. NCEDA is just an additional burden on the fiscus.