Budget cuts on the cards for Gauteng amid bleak economic outloo
30 October 2019
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng notes with concern today’s Medium-Term Budget speech that was delivered by Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni in parliament.
According to the Finance Minister, the South African economy is expected to only grow at 0.5 percent in 2019 compared to the expected 1.5 percent in February.
This means that government needs to provide adequate services with less money.
Expenditure cuts will become a reality if the government wants to make sure that every department has adequate funding for the rest of the financial year as well as going forward.
The release of the unemployment statistics yesterday by the Statistician General indicated that Gauteng has an unemployment rate of 31%.
While national government has also upgraded a number of industrial parks and approved the demarcation of more Special Economic Zones, it has proved to be ineffective in Gauteng as they have very little Return of Investment (ROI).
Furthermore, businesses are also suffering, especially the small and medium enterprises as many of them are subjected to having to pay e-tolls, which they can ill afford.
In addition, the recent spate of load-shedding has also affected small and medium businesses as many would need to close for the time that the electricity is off.
As the economic hub of the country, Gauteng will have to find a decisive way to narrow the deficit, as the province could see budget cuts of up to R20 billion in the next financial year. This will have to be done without fear or favour.
The Gauteng government should also cut its wage bill in order to make more money available for infrastructure development, job creation and service delivery.
The only way in which this can be mitigated is if government ensures that all its job creation programmes are up and running and ensure it creates an environment that is conducive for businesses to flourish.
Issued by Adriana Randall, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Finance and e-Government, 30 October 2019
