Barbara Creecy, the Gauteng MEC for Finance, has announced the province’s R108 billion budget and said it will support the poorest of the poor in tough economic times.
She said in doing so it will strengthen the transformation of the provincial economy and maintain spending on quality social services.
Creecy said the biggest part of the budget will go to the social sector, with health receiving R40,2 billion, education R40,8 billion and social development R4,4 billion in the 2017/ 18 financial year.
She said the 2017/18 budget is also positioned to support efforts by the provincial government to use public procurement as a key instrument to bring about greater inclusion and participation in Gauteng’s economy.
In addition, the Township Economy Revitalisation (TER) Strategy has seen significant progress. To date, the provincial government has done business to the value of over R5 billion with 2 813 township enterprises.
“[W]e have impacted positively on the lives of 350 000 young people in the province through Premier David Makhura’s Tshepo 500 000 initiative. To intensify the programme going forward, an additional R110,9 million is provided for 2017/ 18 to support youth employability,” Creecy explained.
Moving to infrastructure she said, “Over the medium-term we will spend R43,7 billion on infrastructure, making this the largest provincial infrastructure investment in the country”.
Within infrastructure, human settlements will account for the largest share of the infrastructure spend as the provincial government is moving to turn Gauteng into a construction site with the implementation of 31 mega housing projects.
“To ensure infrastructure budgets achieve their targets, funds have been allocated only to those projects that are ‘shovel ready’,” Creecy said.
Furthermore, the province will continue with its modernisation efforts. Funds have been set aside to prepare and support the institutionalisation of ICT in schools, and in support of the province’s goal of providing 100 per cent connectivity for government institutions by 2019, allocations to Gauteng’s Broadband Network project have been increased by R90 million for 2017/ 18.
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