MEC Motlalepula Rosho announces in year budget adjustments
Delivering what she described as consistent with Premier Maape’s strategic direction, the MEC for Finance, Motlalepula Rosho says the 2021 adjustment budget makes provision for job creation and improved service delivery in the current financial year.
Rosho told Members of the Provincial Legislature that the Provincial Budget allocation increases from R46.240 billion to R48.788 billion, which translate to an increase of R2.548 billion.
“The increase is inclusive of R395.813 million for Conditional Grants rollovers and R96.618 million for Equitable Share rollovers. Furthermore R431.038 million for the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative allocated to the Social Cluster Departments namely, Education allocated an increase of R401.2 million, Health receiving an increase of R24.6 million and Social Development increased by R5.2 million.R1.071 billion for Wage Agreements: Cash Gratuity; and R59.841 million for additions to the Conditional Grants (Health and Social Development to relieve pressures on CoE for ECD’s and placement of Medical Interns.”
“Government is committed to continue to dedicate considerable resources to core functions and priorities that will address the triple challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment. This requires government to contain costs, exercise prudent and compliant financial management, and eradicate wasteful use of public funds and resources.” Says Rosho
She further said that the North West Provincial Government has also reprioritized and reallocated the budgets of Departments, from underperforming programmes to address current budget pressures.
Combined public expenditure on Social Cluster which consists of Education, Health, Social Development, Human Settlements and Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation amounts to R38.982 billion or 80 per cent of total provincial budget.
The Health budget is increased from R14.119 billion to R15.271 billion, which translates to an increase of R1.152 billion. This increase consists of an amount of R24.576 million for Health Staff Assistant Nurses; R480.500 million to address CoE budget pressures; R350 million is allocated as additional for accruals and COVID-19 related expenditure; Conditional Grant rollover of R246.589 million for Health Facilities Revitalization Grant; and R13.039 million for National Tertiary Services Grant.
Additional allocations of R5.220 million and R28.414 million are made to the Department of Social Development’s budget for the appointment of social workers as part of addressing the backlog of unemployed social worker graduates and to address CoE budget pressures, respectively. Furthermore, an amount of R22.165 million was reduced from infrastructure allocations, bringing the adjusted allocation for this department to R1.828 billion in the current financial year.
The budget for the department of Social Development is adjusted to R1.893 billion whilst that of Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation’s budget is adjusted downwards by R14.883 million, from R710 million to R695 million.
The budget for the Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism is adjusted downwards to R892.302 million and that of Public Works and Roads has been increased by R17.610 million. Amounts of R10.4 million, R1.642 million, R2.172 million and R1.225 million are added to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s budget as rollovers for the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme Grant, Illima/Letsema Projects Grant, Land Care Programme Grant: Poverty Relief and Infrastructure Development and Agricultural Disaster Management Grant, respectively.
The budget for the Department of Community Safety and Transport Management is adjusted to R2.165 billion, consisting of a rollover of R8.275 million for Pilanesburg Airport Renovations and reductions of R17 million for infrastructure and a further reduction of R24.233 million from CoE. The Office of the Premier’s budget is adjusted to R451.570 million. The budget of the Provincial Treasury is adjusted from R509.299 million to R517.514 million, translating into an increase of R8.215 million.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs receives an additional amount of R10 million for the reconstitution of traditional councils, R18 million to address budget pressures including implementation of Section 138(b) of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) and R20 million to unlock the challenges relating to the provision of water. The budget for the Provincial Legislature has been adjusted upwards with R47 million based on their retained earnings, thus increasing the budget to R514.255 million for the current financial year.
“We have also made an allocation that seeks to accelerate the support towards finalizing the planning and packaging of Mega and Catalytic Projects identified for PPP and Blended funding through national interventions. We are making a humble plea to departments to present such projects to ensure that the Province is on the right trajectory of economic recovery and development,” she said
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Source: Government of South Africa