Madam Speaker, His Excellency the President, Honourable Deputy President, Honourable members of this House, the President's office in a certain sense transcends the rough and tumble of the day to day political process because the Office of the Presidency contains the offices of both the Head of State and the Head of the National Executive.

It is in the interests of all our citizens that the Office of the Presidency functions smoothly and efficiently and that the interaction between the Presidency and the institution of Parliament is both streamlined and seamless. In this regard, it is gratifying that the Budget makes adequate provision for the President and the Deputy President to fulfil their Constitutional obligations.

it is said that "The turtle only makes progress when she sticks her neck out" I am going to stick my neck out at this point Mr President because it has become expected of me to use every opportunity to do so with regard the salaries of members of Parliament.

Several years back, the then Goldstone Commission had recommended that regular salary increases should be automatic as at the 1st of April of every year. It was suggested at the time that such increases should be 1% below CPI.

There was an undertaking at the time that the annual Goldstone Report reports would be submitted before the end of November each year and that the Presidency would ensure the implementation of such increases would be effective as at 1 April of each year.

Despite this undertaking, we are now almost at the end of June and still have no idea what is happening with salary increases this year.

I appeal to the President to please look at this matter urgently as this affect all the members of this house. Having duly stuck my neck out as expected, let me return to the topic under discussion.

In the year that we are celebrating our first decade of democracy, the Budget Vote of the President's Office affords us an excellent opportunity to appraise the institution of the Presidency itself.

One must be generous spirited in acknowledging that the ruling-party's success in garnering just short of seventy percent of the vote in the April elections was also very much a personal achievement for the President himself. This achievement also imbues our President with the grave responsibility of ensuring that the Presidency is alert and sensitive to the essential checks-and-balances of the democratic and free society.

Paradoxically, I believe the touchstone of the success of the Presidency over the next five years will be the extent to which the President will be willing to relinquish power and devolve decision-making.

There is clear water between the President's and the IFP vision of society. We believe the decision-making should be taken to the closest point to the community and individual as practically possible. In our competing vision, we place the individual and the community at the heart of society, not government. The President's and the ruling-party's instinct, on the other hand, is to grasp all power at the centre and to impose decisions in a top-down manner, effectively tying each mayor to the president.

It is my fervent conviction, Madam Speaker, that if the Presidency is to succeed in fulfilling the noble ambition of turning back the frontiers of poverty and closing the gap between the "first" and "second" economy, the President will need to draw upon the contributions of all political parties in this House and that broad and rich constellation of groups known as 'civil society'.

One of the primary roles of the Presidency is policy co-ordination, which affects the lives of all ordinary South Africans. I hope the President will be able to rise above party and have the courage to heed advice from other political parties, for they represent constituencies that did not vote for the ruling-party and who are as patriotically South African as those people who did! And after all, the two largest opposition parties do not participate in the Executive. Such constructive engagement can only serve to deepen democracy, promote non-racialism and enrich the process of creating cogent and workable solutions to our nation's challenges and maladies.

The Presidency should welcome principled and constructive opposition and not caricature it as a camouflage for racism or the protection of elite interests.

As a moral and constructive opposition party, we would appeal to the President to seek to accommodate the views of all opposition parties in finding common solutions to the problems we face as a nation at home and abroad: the Aids pandemic; the widening inequality gap; endemic poverty, which is most acute in the rural areas; rooting out corruption, the un-abating wave of crime, and the continuing unfolding economic and social crisis in Zimbabwe.

I appeal to the President to use the prestige and authority of the Presidency to work unceasingly to break down notions of 'them' and 'us' between HIV positive and non-infected people and to raise awareness about this disease and to end the equivocation and malaise which has characterised this Presidency's approach to dealing with HIV/Aids.

The Presidency must boldly lead the government's efforts from the front to bridge the gap between policy and the implementation of a comprehensive plan to treat HIV/Aids.

In the fight against poverty, the Presidency has a huge role to play in promoting an economic vision empowers the poor and marginalised by drawing them into the mainstream of economic opportunity.

Madam Speaker, the Child's Rights Organisation tells us that many children live in conditions where their rights are threatened. This is a serious blemish on a civilised society. The promotion and protection of children's rights fall within the ambit of policy co-ordination in the Presidency.

Many children have been orphaned by Aids and many are even the sole breadwinners for their families. The Presidency must take the lead in defending the rights of children affected by Aids, particularly the girl-child.

In the formulation and implementation of our public policy, the Presidency must be especially vigilant to ensure that in South Africa we avoid a process of elite transition in which we merely exchange yesterday's bitter politics of racial superiority with the equally cruel politics of the haves and have-nots. Left unchecked, unfilled expectations could have the explosive cauldron effect of ripping apart the seams of national unity and reconciliation that we have all strived to strengthen over the last decade.

Turning to the arena of foreign policy, in view of the Presidency's significant involvement in NEPAD, there is much with our experience in conflict resolution, I believe, we can contribute to assisting in resolving conflicts in Africa and further away, such as the Middle East. One of the lessons of the twentieth century must be that no country can keep the world out. Our foreign policy must be consistent and ethical. We must always stand up to bullies, irrespective of any past or present bonds of friendship. This Presidency is better placed than other chancery in the world to hold the government of Zimbabwe to account for human rights abuses and for the deterioration and the undermining of the legal and democratic institutions there.