Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan today
delivered the fifth and last Budget of President Jacob Zuma’s administration
before elections. Minister Gordhan spoke
about Job creation, Social Grants, Health, Infrastructure Investments and Education
which the spending is higher than any other category.
Gordhan has estimated government
expenditure to be around R1.25 Trillion for the 2014/15 year around R1 trillion
will be allocated through tax which means that an estimated R153 Billion will
have to be borrowed from local and international.
Concerning Job creation Minister said since
the low-point of the 2009 recession, employment has increased by approximately
1.3 million, as recorded in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. But unemployment
of 24 per cent of the work force is still far too high. Government has a
strategy that includes Implementation of the Community Work Programme in every
Municipality by 2017, Establishment of special economic zone, industrial
incentives, and support for agriculture and labour intensive sectors.
With Social Grants he also said the number
of people eligible for grants is due to reach 16.5 million by 2016/17 and the
number of social grant beneficiaries has doubled from 7.7 million in 2003/04 to
15.8 million in 2013/14.
For health since the rollout of the
National Health Insurance the countries health has over the past year seen an
increase in life expectancy, the reduction of in infant, child and maternal
mortality as about 2.5 million people who have now excess to anti-retroviral.
Concerning infrastructure investment Minister
Gordhan said they are making progress in overcoming infrastructure backlogs and
investing for more inclusive growth and development like the first unit of
Medupi Power station, which is expected to be completed towards the end of this
year. Public infrastructure will amount to 847 billion over the next three
years.
In Education Government has allocated more than R250 billion in education over the next three years, R78 billion will go towards University subsidies and R34.3 billion for building schools.
No comments:
Post a Comment