Gauteng provincial govt gets additional budget for infrastructure, jobs

Gauteng MEC for finance and e-government, Nomantu Nkomo Ralehoko, has added R443.9 million to the Gauteng budget to enhance infrastructure and maintenance of existing facilities and create job opportunities in the province.

She said Gauteng was better placed to increase the rate of economic growth, create jobs and fight poverty as a leading destination for foreign direct investment in Africa.

She was delivering a medium-term budget policy statement and the provincial adjustment appropriation bill in the Gauteng provincial legislature yesterday.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Gauteng spokesperson for finance Mike Moriarty said the adjustment of the budget was a sacrifice for poor and vulnerable people who must pay for maladministration and lack of consequence management in the province.

“Payments to those impacted by Life Esidimeni and investment into services for the poorest of the poor have been sacrificed to cater to the maladministration of the province.

“The budget for health and housing has increased, amounting to nearly R900 million, and was largely funded by the underspending of R733 million in other departments,” Moriarty said.

The total provincial budget for the 2019/20 financial year has increased from R132.4 billion announced in March to R132.9 billion.

R33.4 million was allocated to economic development to enhance revenue collection, and health received R59 million for the Health Revenue Incentive Scheme.

“Provincial own revenue plays a significant role in augmenting national transfers and providing resources for provincially determined priorities. Over the current 2020 MTEF we expect to collect R21.2 billion in own revenue,” MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

Nkomo said that the public finances were experiencing serious pressures and said the additional infrastructure budget will cater for occupational health and safety repairs, refurbishment of health facilities and maintenance of existing buildings across provincial departments.

“In line with this, the Department of Infrastructure Development (DID) is currently finalising Gauteng’s five-year infrastructure project pipeline.

“Our focus is also on establishing partnerships, particularly levering on private sector financing for implementation of large infrastructure programmes and projects in the province,” she said.

She said the provincial treasury was committed to funding the plan of Premier David Makhura of Growing Gauteng Together (GGT).

“In this adjustment budget we have managed to realign an estimated amount of R47 billion within the existing fiscal envelope to the GGT priorities,” she said.

“The rationale for keeping the wage bill below 60% is to ensure that there is no crowding out of resources – once salaries have been paid, there needs to be money left for operational programmes,” she said.

Moriarty said the money that was used for additional budget includes the money that should’ve been spending on persons impacted by Life Esidimeni, on social development and on schools to build libraries.

“In our opinion, this represents financial mismanagement. In short, this budget penalises the poor and the vulnerable to cover incompetence, mismanagement and probably corruption,” Moriarty said.

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