Date: 13/04/2010
Source: The Democratic Alliance
Title: DA: Ollis: Speech by DA Member of Parliament, on the Labour budget vote

Honourable Speaker, Honourable members.

Are we helping South Africa's workers and the unemployed? When we look at how the labour department is performing, there is some good, some bad and some really ugly.

This year, the good is the work of the Unemployment Fund, the CCMA and Nedlac. They are performing their functions well and we get very little by way of complaints about their service generally. To them, the DA says: "Well done".

The Bad must be the Compensation Fund, Productivity SA and the labour inspectorate. Productivity SA is too small and has too few real experts in the field to make a serious difference to productivity in this country. They seem to lack the energy and clout to take industry in general to the levels that we are seeing in countries like Brazil.

The Compensation Fund is still in the doldrums as my colleague has already pointed out.

The labour inspectorate is languishing as it always has without vehicles, uniforms or sufficient staff. Approximately 1000 inspectors are required to police labour practices in every one of South Africa's factories, mines and offices.

And now, Honorable Members, we come to the ugly.

Mr Jimmy Manyi, the Director General of Labour, has asked for more money from Parliament! To put it in perspective, together with the annual increase, the Labour Department has a proposed budget of R1.8 billion.

Mr Manyi, however, suddenly told the portfolio committee recently that he needed an extra billion rand to run this department. He could not, at that point, give proper details for this supposed billion. Why not? Because his staff had never requested these large sums from Treasury.

Only after he requested the additional billion did he pressurise his staff, in emails sent at the last minute, to come up with budgets for things that they did not need.

Let me read an extract from Mr Manyi's confidential email to his staff. This is not something that has been made available publicly before, but it makes for fascinating reading:

"22 March 2010

Colleagues

As you all know that I have asked for R1 Bn from the fiscus as of 1 April 2010. (sic). Tina would have already written to ALL of you. However I sit here with no response from anyone.

I need to have a detailed requirement list by 12:00 on Tuesday (23 March) to send to Parliament. The Honorable Chair is waiting for it.

Just to remind you

LMP = R500m (CCMA NEDLAC, SEF, PSA)

Admin = R300m (Professionals for all the programs by sector, including the two funds)

PES = R100m (ICT, Infrastructure etc)

IES = R100m (gadgets to measure dust, radioactivity, etc., more cars)"

(LMP is Labour Market Programmes; PES is Public Employment Services; IES is Inspection and Enforcement Services)

So he asks for another billion, then he tells his staff to make up budgets that equal another billion and then he expects parliament to fall for his cheap trick.

Honorable Minister, how is it acceptable to ask for additional money, if you have no idea how it is going to be spent?

When the staff did agree to create these additional large budgets, our DG didn't even check the details! He placed a document before Parliament on Friday, 26th of March, calling for an additional R1billion to be given to him to run the Labour Department properly.

Of course the supporting documents have details of items totalling R900 million. So in addition to everything else, this raises the question: "Where is the missing one hundred million Rand? I mean it's hardly lunch money that Mr. Manyi mislays in his calculation. It says he needs a new computer system for a hundred and thirty five million Rand. Why? As pointed out by my colleague, the Hon Makhubela-Mashele, he is committed to the Siemens contract of R1.7 billion for a further 2 years to supply both computer hardware and software. He says he needs R300 million for labour law reform and related costs. The most expensive lawyers and advocates in Sandton will not charge us R300 million in one year for legal fees to draft 3 amendments. Even if we include public hearings, the amount is still astronomical!

The Labour Portfolio Committee members have been doing some research into Mr. Manyi's figures and quite frankly it's a circus. Let's begin with the financial year that has just finished. Mr Manyi asks the entities in the Labour Department to economise due to the economic crisis. He, however, does the opposite in arranging a lavish end of year party at a hotel in Irene in December. He flies departmental heads from the four corners of the country to attend. The problem with this function is that these same people were flown up to Gauteng for meetings ending the Friday before. Why could the end of year function not have been held then? The seminar apparently finished at 3 in the afternoon. Now Mr. Manyi flies them all up again a week later, just for a party! At the taxpayers expense! How much did it cost? I'm still waiting for the Hon Minister to answer the written parliamentary question!

Not only does Mr Manyi pay for the party out of last year's budget, but he also had to hand back approximately R50 million to the Treasury in unspent funds at the end of the financial year. Parliament then increases his budget this year to R1.8 billion and now the DG wants us to add another R1 billion to his budget. Why? Does he need more parties? Where is the end of year function this year? In the Bahamas?

We don't need the computers, nor the expensive lawyers and the amounts don't even add up to one Billion. How is this not lying to Parliament to get more taxpayers money to fly more staff to bigger parties. And Mr. Manyi, the answer is a resounding NO to this request! As my father used to say, this is a case of "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, my name is Jimmy!"