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Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) opposed the budget of the National Treasury, on the basis of Treasury’s failure to implement the wage subsidy proposal.

We have also opposed the Presidency’s budget, on account of President Jacob Zuma’s failure of leadership to take South Africa forward.

The debacle surrounding the youth wage subsidy constituted the first time that National Treasury budgeted for a major policy, allocated it an implementation date and was then unable to implement it because of Cosatu’s veto.

Not only is this a tragedy for the 60% of young people who are unemployed, it also raises serious new questions about National Treasury’s ability to implement economic policy.

Parliament's budget process presents the government with an opportunity to signal its spending priorities for the coming financial year.

The message that the ANC government sends with this year’s Budget is that it is prepared to place the political agenda of Cosatu above the needs of millions of unemployed South Africans.

The DA today walked out of Parliament in protest against a ruling by the Deputy Speaker regarding remarks made during the Presidency budget debate by Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota.

However, the DA’s Deputy Chief Whip Sandy Kalyan MP remained in the National Assembly, to ensure that the DA’s position on all budget votes was recorded.

In total, the DA supported 8 budget votes today. In broad terms, we feel that these departments have allocated their budgets effectively, and have the capacity to ensure that their spending commitments are met.

They are the following:

• Home Affairs
• Stats SA
• Correctional Services
• Independent Police Investigative Directorate
• Environmental Affairs
• Science and Technology
• Tourism
• Water Affairs

We objected to 31 budget votes, including:

• Parliament
• The Presidency
• National Treasury
• Public Service
• Health
• Police
• Basic Education
• Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs
• Labour

The budgets for these departments fail to ensure that public money is used as effectively as possible to meet the needs of the South African people. Some of these departments have proved unable to spend the money allocated to them. Others have splurged their budgets on ballooning staff complements and overseas trips.

These 31 departments have failed to show that they can manage state funds prudently, and prioritise their spending to ensure that their services are delivered to those who need them.

In the case of 15 departments’ budgets, we are so strongly opposed to their budgets that we intended to call for a division in Parliament. This means that every member of Parliament’s individual vote will be recorded.

However, as the DA caucus walked out of the National Assembly today, we were unable to call for divisions and therefore recorded our opposition to these budgets.

The budgets we intended to call a division on included the following departments:

• The Presidency
• Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs
• Women, Children and People with Disabilities
• Police
• Basic Education

It is clear that from the majority of departments' budget votes, South Africa is suffering a crisis of leadership. The government has failed to provide bold solutions to big problems at a time when the basic needs of millions of South Africans are not being met.