The ANC in the Western Cape says job creation should be at the top of the list when Alan Winde delivers his 2013 budget speech.
|||Cape Town - Jobs, jobs and more jobs - that’s what the ANC in the Western Cape wants to hear when Finance, Economic Development and Tourism MEC Alan Winde delivers his 2013 budget speech on Thursday.
Briefing the media on the party’s expectations on Tuesday, ANC MPL Carol Beerwinkel said job creation should top Winde’s list, followed by a plan to spend his government's infrastructure budget and the conditional grants received from the national Treasury.
She said only 61.5 percent of the provincial government’s R3.9 billion infrastructure budget for 2012/13 had been spent by December, and that 4.3 percent of the R9.5 million Dinaledi schools grant - to improve the quality of pupil performance in maths, physics and literacy - had been used over the same period.
“This is a big worry for us,” Beerwinkel said. “MEC Winde must give us a commitment (Thursday) that the conditional grants will be spent and that the funds will be spread to where it is needed most.”
Beerwinkel said the DA should also “drastically increase” its spending on the poor.
“National government allocated almost R41.8bn to the Western Cape, consisting of R32.2bn from the equitable share and R9.6bn in conditional transfers for the 2013/14 financial year - which is the bulk of the provincial income,” she said.
“The ANC wants to see that the money is well spent in the public interest of the poor… “Far too little thus far out of the DA’s own initiatives go towards improving the lives of poor people,” Beerwinkel added.
ANC MPL and leader of the opposition in the legislature Lynne Brown said the provincial government should spend its current infrastructure budget for 2012/13 before accepting R2bn from the national Treasury for infrastructure projects over the next three years.
In response, Winde’s spokeswoman Phumzile Van Damme said the ANC’s claims were “far from the truth”.
“The Western Cape Treasury is well on its way to spending 100 percent of the conditional grant budget,” she said.
Cape Argus