Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has told Parliament that addressing spending pressures to restore “critical frontline services and invest in infrastructure” is key to improving access to services such as health and education.
It is for this reason, Godongwana revealed, that over the medium term, government spending, excluding interest, will reach at least R6.69 trillion.
“The provincial education sector baseline over the 2025 MTEF [Medium-Term Expenditure Framework] is R1.04 trillion, and R9.5 billion will be added over the medium term to keep teachers in classrooms and hire more staff. An additional R10 billion has been added to the baseline as announced during the March 12 budget to expand access to early education is kept unchanged.
“This will increase the ECD [early childhood development] subsidy from R17 per child per day to R24. The extra funding will also support increased access to ECD for 700,000 more children, up to the age of five years,” the Minister said on Wednesday.
The budget for the provincial health sector will reach some R845 billion over the medium term to facilitate in part, the employment of hundreds of doctors who have already completed their in-service training.
“This budget will be increased by R20.8 billion over three years to employ 800 post-community service doctors and essential goods and services and reduction of accruals. This increase will also assist the sector in addressing personnel budget pressures,” he said.
Withdrawal of troops
Godongwana said funding for the deployment of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be reconfigured.
This in light of the announcement that the troops – who were there as part of the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo – will be withdrawing from the East African country.
“[The] R5 billion we had proposed to allocate to the Department of Defence for its participation in the SADC mission in the DRC is reduced. But the allocation for 2025/26 has been increased from R1.8 billion to R3 billion.
“This will cover the immediate costs of an orderly and safe withdrawal of our troops and mission equipment,” he said.
The spending allocations for early retirement, allocations for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) and the municipal trading entity reforms announced earlier this year remain “but at a slightly lower level than anticipated in the March 12 budget”.
“The spending choices we are proposing today demonstrate the government’s determination to bolster the state capability needed to deliver quality, reliable and sustainable core services,” Godongwana said. – SAnews.gov.za
