Education gets biggest bite of KZN budget

TWO new grants  have been added to the fiscal framework as part of the expansion of social spending in the 2017/2018 provincial budget. KZN MEC for Finance, Belinda Scott delivered the budget at the KZN legislature on Tuesday.

The two new grants are:

• The Learners with Profound Intellectual Disabilities grant and Education receives R5.558 million, R14.739 million and R17.545 million. The purpose of the grant is to provide educational opportunities to learners with severe and profound intellectual disabilities.
• The Social Worker Employment grant is introduced in the Social Development sector. The aim of the grant is to address the need of social workers in the sector and reduce the backlog in the number of social worker graduates that remain unemployed after completion of their government subsidised education. The department receives R53.459 million, R58.855 million and R62.522 million.

The South African economy is still growing at a very slow pace and is expected to remain remain fragile, growing at 1.3% in 2017 and 2% in 2018 said the National Minister for Finance, Pravin Gordhan, in his budget speech two weeks ago,

The KZN provincial economic growth performance has not been that different from the rest of the country and globally.

A slow 1.5% growth rate in 2017 has been predicted. This sluggish provincial economic performance is, to a large extent, influenced by the contractions in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries, mining and quarrying, electricity, as well as trade.

KwaZulu-Natal has suffered substantial budget cuts over the last few MTEF periods: the province loses a total of R439.632 million, R488.993 million and R789.110 million over the 2017/18 MTEF. These reductions on the revenue side directly impact on the resources that are available for allocation to all departments.

On the other hand, National Treasury is adding some funds to the provincial baseline for Education and Health.  Education receives R634.605 million in 2018/19 and R686.110 million in 2019/20 to assist with personnel spending pressures. KZN is currently funding learners at below the national norm and these funds will assist to begin to correct this anomaly.

Health receives R211.111 million in 2019/20 for the exchange rate pressures in the procurement of medicines and medical supplies as a result of the weakened Rand/Dollar exchange rate.

National Treasury provides an amount of R1.498 billion in 2019/20 and this offsets the budget cuts in the outer year meaning that the budget cuts effected against departments as a result of lower revenue expectations are offset in the outer year.

The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) grant under Education increases to provide for inflationary pressures related to food prices. The addition is made to alleviate this pressure and to ensure the programme can continue to provide a nutritious meal to qualifying learners on school days.

The other major impact on the provincial fiscus is the remuneration of Izinduna in this province.

All efforts to secure funding for this unfunded mandate from the national fiscus have failed, and it is clear that the province is expected to deal with this unfunded mandate from within the provincial fiscus.

It was agreed by the Provincial Executive Council that the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) will fund 50% of the amount needed for the remuneration of the Izinduna from within their baseline through reprioritisation, while the balance of 50% is proportionately cut from all remaining Votes.

The amount that is required to fund the Izinduna is calculated at R252.328 million, R266.206 million and R280.847 million over the 2017/18 MTEF.

The development of a Provincial Infrastructure Master Plan for the province is well underway and is being developed with all the infrastructure related authorities.

The key infrastructure areas to be focused on are harbours, airports, road, rail, water, sanitation, electricity, ICT, school and health facilities, human settlements, as well as specialist infrastructure to support lead economic sectors in the province. Infrastructure development is the foundation for poverty reduction and economic growth in developing countries.

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