The Rand West Local Municipality will get a R16 million slice of the R255,9 billion pie set to be spent by the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) over the next three years.
According to an announcement made on Thursday by Finance MEC, Barbara Creecy, the GPG will spend more than R250 billion over the next three years to ensure that citizens have access to high quality public education and better health care services.
Barbara said the R16 million has been allocated to assist the Rand West Local Municipality in supplying electrification services to RDP houses in Mohlakeng Extensions 5 and 11.
A statement released by the GPG revealed that about R128,7 billion will be spent on education alone in the next three years.
“This will finance 2,3 million learners in the public schooling system. This comprises 1,2 million learners at no-fee schools; 42 000 learners in special schools, and 141 000 Grade R learners,” said Barbara.
She went on to say that in the last two years government had spent R600 million on bursaries, learnerships and internships which have benefitted thousands of learners, particularly those from poorer families, throughout the province.
In order to further improve the delivery of comprehensive health services, including preventative, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services and health promotion activities, the Health Department will receive R127,2 billion over the next three years.
The MEC also said the third key priority area in government’s expenditure in the coming years will be infrastructure, in order to improve service delivery in communities and create much-needed jobs. To ensure that infrastructure service delivery is enhanced, government will continue to work with the private sector.
“In this regard, the Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency will have a project pipeline with the potential of raising more than R40 billion to support the Provincial Infrastructure Master Plan for the 2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework period.
“The GPG remains committed to clean government. This is evidenced by significant improvement in the 2015/16 Audit Outcomes by Gauteng departments and agencies. Our war on waste is succeeding. Last year, the GPG drastically reduced fruitless and wasteful expenditure, including interest paid on overdue accounts and litigation settlements, by 93 per cent, from R415 million the previous year to R29 million last year. That’s a significant saving of R386 million!” she said.
Barbara added: “We have also managed to intensify cost containment measures and over the past two budget cycles working with our departments, we have diverted almost half a billion rand from non-core spending towards our priority programmes”.
Turning to the Adjustment Budget, the MEC said Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs has been allocated R20 million to address the resettlement needs of communities that are affected by recent floods in the province.
In addition, this department will receive R14,5 million to assist the Emfuleni Local Municipality to prevent sewerage spills into our river system, and R20 million to assist the Municipality of Merafong to begin repairs to the water pipeline for Khutsong Extensions 4 and 5 and Welverdiend, which was damaged by a sinkhole.
Barbara went on to say that through the Premier’s community outreach programme, Ntirhisano, government has engaged meaningfully with citizens and identified key service delivery areas that must be attended to in order to improve the lives of the people.
“The scourge of substance abuse is another matter that has been raised with the Provincial Executive Council in every community,” she said. This is why Social Development has been allocated an additional R36,2 million to establish a new treatment centre and centres of excellence in Sedibeng, for the purpose of upskilling rehabilitated drug addicts, amongst other things.
Another issue that has been repeatedly raised during the Ntirhisano programme is the delay in the issuing of title deeds for new and existing houses. Human Settlements has been allocated R50 million to accelerate the issuing of title deeds by paying outstanding municipal services.
To assist the Department of Community Safety in its war on crime, R20,7 million has been allocated to fund the roll-out of the Memeza Community Alarm project to the houses of the elderly and child-headed households.
To further enhance economic opportunities across the province, the Office of the Premier will receive R20 million to fund youth employment programmes under Tshepo 500 000, while Economic Development will get an additional R25,5 million to bolster tourism and support programmes for Small, Medium and Micro-size Enterprises.
Furthermore a total of R53,7 million has been allocated to Agriculture and Rural Development: R39 million for the Gauteng Cleaner Production and Remediation Fund, to be used for waste recycling projects and R14,7 million to fund various other projects, including the completion of the hydroponics tunnels in the De Deur area.
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