Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has emphasised the need to rebuild the economy, rehabilitate public finances and recover from the devastation brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As we rose to that fiscal challenge, so we will rise to this one.”
Here are highlights from his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.
– Almost R1.8-trillion has been allocated to social development, social and food relief, state-owned enterprises, employment, early childhood development and for national, provincial and local government.
– R7-billion will be allocated to the Land Bank on top of the R3-billion that was allocated in June to support its restructuring.
– South African Airways has been allocated R10.5-billion to implement its business rescue plan. Mboweni said that this allocation was in addition to the R16.4-billion allocated to SAA in June. It would be funded through reductions to the baselines of national departments, public entities and conditional grants.
– The State Capture Commission of Inquiry was allocated an additional R63-million from Justice Department, and it would be used to finalise investigations and produce a final report.
– Subsidies of R2.2-billion would support the Social Housing Programme. A further R6.7-billion has been contractually committed to this programme.
– The Student Housing Programme would be allocated an estimated R96-billion, which would service nearly 300,000 students a year upon completion.
– The Social Relief of Distress grant, which was extended to January, has received R6.8-billion, which was shifted from the public employment programme allocation.
– A further R1-billion has been set aside for food relief.
– R12.6-billion would be allocated to employment initiatives which President Cyril Ramaphosa laid out in the country’s economic reconstruction and development programme.
– R7-billion would go to the Provincial Equitable Share, which would support jobs at fee-paying public schools and government subsidised independent schools.
– Early childhood development and social work employment has been boosted by R600-million, and R2-billion would go “Working for Fire, Working for Water and Working for Forests.”.
– An amount of R806.7-billion has been allocated to national departments,R628.3-billion to provinces and R139.9-billion to local government.
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