During the first reading debate of the Appropriation Bill, Ms Elsabe Ntlangwini contested that budgets are approved without considerations because Parliament has no capacity to interrogate them and to make meaningful input to approve budgets that are meant to better the lives of our people. “What is worse is that we are passing a Bill for which departments are already spending the money. A clear example of how Parliament’s processes are out of touch with reality.”
The question is though, are we moving fast enough towards the realisation of the 2030 goals of the National Development Plan, said Ms Sibongile Nkomo.
“With Statistics South Africa officially announcing that this country has now fallen into recession, impetus through funding must be provided to the sectors that are showing negative growth.”
Most of our budget is allocated for the compensation of employees whose sole responsibility is to service the people of this country. Are we getting maximum output, the answer is no, said Mr Ahmed Shaik Emam.
“Unless measures are put in place to ensure accountability and consequences for all officials at all levels of government, the future of South Africans is bleak.”
The 2017 Appropriation Bill contains a range of redistributive allocations with a string bias towards the poor and working class families, said Ms Sibongile Manana.
“The budget contained in the 2017 appropriations is not only redistributive, but is a pro-poor budget at its best. We welcome the R7.3bn allocated towards funding the shortfalls at universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges – resulting to no fees increase to households with incomes less than R600 000 a year.”
During public hearings on the 2017 Appropriation Bill in Khayelitsha, the Equal Education eloquently welcomed the increased funding for school infrastructure, she added. “We share the same sentiment with Equal Education, and we encourage these movements to work with Parliament in ensuring that the budget serves communities as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
This budget is under significant risk due to lower economic growth, more people are out of work, irregular expenditure is increasing and the financial position of the state-owned enterprises has deteriorated, said Dr Malcolm Figg.
“This slow rate of economic growth will not be sufficient to markedly reduce unemployment, poverty and inequality. In order to make up the backlog, the economy will have to grow by 7.2% for the remaining 13 years to meet the 2030 National Development Plan’s targets.”
He decried the mismanagement of state-owned enterprises. “Although there is a sound legal framework that governs them, operational inefficiencies, poor procurement practices, weak corporate governance and failure to abide by the fiduciary obligations have plagued several of them, and they are now in serious financial difficulty.”
In this tough economic climate, we have spending plans to moderate expenditure growth. And we need to maintain our fiscal framework to lift our economy out of slow growth trap, said the Minister of Finance, Mr Malusi Gigaba.
We are on course to stabilise the government’s wage bill, he said. “We have called on the department of Public Service and Administration to reduce appointments and to monitor personnel employment trends as a means to stabilise the government’s wage bill.”
Our new procurement reforms will ensure that there is effective expenditure of public spending, he said. “We aim at narrowing corruption by R25bn by renegotiating contracts and to cutting red tape.”
Part our efforts is to arrest recession and realise our long-term financial growth, to ensure that there is a value-added labour sector and state-owned enterprises are governed efficiently and their procurement commitments respond to our growth challenges, he said.
By Abel Mputing
8 June 2017
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