DA and EFF opposition: ‘Extended budget prioritises admin services’
The EFF said it found that the medium-term budget policy statement did not prioritise citizen well-being, but was instead done merely for compliance purposes.
POLOKWANE – The DA and EFF, the two leading opposition parties in Provincial Legislature criticised the allocation and extension of money to administrative duties deemed less important than priority service delivery projects for the better half of the current fiscal year, as tabled by Treasury MEC Seaparo Sekoati on November 21. The tabling was held at the city’s council chamber.
A total of 49.8% of R79.2b has been spent in the first half of the 2023/24 financial year, and Sekoati announced a prediction to overspend by R1.795b primarily on education and health due to employee compensation and unnamed non-negotiable items in the two departments.
The Education Department was allocated an additional R949m to fund pressures in employee compensation, according to Sekoati. The department, however, had surrendered R10m previously earmarked for e-learning and also returned over R204m of conditional rollovers, which the DA’s Lindy Wilson said could have been used to improve ailing and develop new infrastructure in schools across the province.
Wilson said her party was also concerned about the surrendering of R8.5m from the Cuban scholarships earmarked funds as it affects confidence for youths who want to pursue education.
The same amount was, however added to purchase emergency medical services computer-aided dispatch equipment to improve response times to emergencies.
Meanwhile, the EFF said it found that the medium-term budget policy statement did not prioritise citizen well-being, but was instead done merely for compliance purposes.
“Additional money primarily address employee salaries. Despite our previous calls for a people-centric budget, advocating for 24-hour clinic operations, improved water provision, adequate housing for those in need, high quality road infrastructure and robust support for the agriculture sector, these requests have fallen on deaf ears,” the party said in a statement.
The province generated an increase of 12.5% in revenue from R1.710b mainly influenced by improved collections of interest from favourable bank balances by provincial treasury, horse racing taxes, and once-off recovery of old debts by the Limpopo Gambling Board and Social Development. The gambling board also surrendered unspent funds, as did the Limpopo Tourism Agency.
The EFF viewed such revenue generation as a “disproportionate reliance” on the board as a “sole dependable entity capable of generating revenue for the province”.
“State entities should ideally be self-sustainable, generating their revenue without relying on government bailouts. The primary purpose of these entities is to drive economic growth and job creation, objectives that have unfortunately not been met by Limpopo’s state entities over the years.
“Many residents are unaware of entities such as Corridor Mining, highlighting the failure of transparency and communication,” the statement read.
