South Africa to earmark R1.58 trillion towards social services

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on Wednesday presented a budget reflecting consolidated government expenditure of R2.67 trillion, with R1.58 trillion going towards social services to grapple with the challenges reflected in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address (Sona) earlier this month.

These included dealing with the fight against organised crime and criminal syndicates; stimulating economic growth and job creation, addressing the aging infrastructure and the water crisis.

Allocations for education (R527.2 billion), followed by social development (R446.6 billion), health (R310.4 billion) and economic development (R283.9 billion), received the biggest slice of the budget, with peace and security getting R274.6 billion.

In the peace and security allocation, police services will receive R140.1 billion, defence and state security R59.3 billion, law courts and prisons R60.9 billion while the home affairs will get R14.3 billion.

Asked to explain the rationale behind the peace and security budget being lower than other areas, national treasury officials told the Mail & Guardian that funds covering the deployment of soldiers in crime-affected areas — as announced by Ramaphosa in his Sona, had not yet been costed.

“The costing will soon be completed in a matter of a week. We also wish to state that R1.76 billion will cover border patrol by our soldiers securing illegal entry into the country,”  one official said.

Addressing a media briefing ahead of tabling the budget in parliament, Godongwana said the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) “will be done within the law – something standard when the president deploys troops”.

“We are currently awaiting the SANDF and the South African Police Service to come up with a crime-prevention strategy, number of deployees and costs,” added.

The education budget was broken down to R344.7 billion for basic education, R54.3 billion for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, R50.3 billion for student transfers, R30.1 billion for skills development levy institutions, R22.7 billion for education administration and R15.0 billion for technical and vocational education and training.

The budget was silent on the National Health Insurance, whose implementation has been put on hold pending legal challenges. The health budget allocation includes R137.8 billion for district health services, R59.7 billion for central hospital services, R50.6 billion for provincial hospital services, R50.5 billion for other health services and R11.8 billion for facilities management and maintenance.

Economic development has been given a sizable R283.9 billion while R294.3 billion will go towards community development.