Nie Cele
Sedulous Gauteng Finance and E Government MEC, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko went straight for a jugular in revealing her department’s key priorities and performance highlights after pronouncing a hefty and beefy R792 million allocated to the Gauteng Treasury department for the 2022/23 financial year.
The MEC didn’t mince her words and was on business as usual during her budget vote speech at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL).
At first she told the (GPL) members this allocation will enable her department to achieve its objective of ensuring effective and efficient financial management and drive economic transformation.
“We will use these resources to do the following, amongst other things,”
- Improve own revenue collection so we can maintain and enhance provincial spending first and foremost on education, health care, and social services.
- Sustain improvements in public finance management to further cut waste, eliminate corruption, and strengthen public accountability.
- Use public procurement to transform the economic landscape and build a more inclusive and sustainable growth path.
- Grow our infrastructure spend through on and off budget initiatives.
Ralehoko’s speech delved much on revenue collection which she said will help enhance sound finances in the entire province.
“Improved revenue collection will ensure that we maintain and enhance spending on education, health care, and social services at the time when transfers from National Government are declining.
“That is why we launched the GPG Revenue Enhancement Strategy last month. Our overall aim is to increase revenue generated from the province over the next three years by R3.7 billion over and above the 2022 MTEF revenue baseline estimates.
“As a province, we recognize that enhanced own revenue collection relies less in introducing new taxes within our mandate, in accordance with the prescribed processes, but rather improving the efficiency of collection from the traditional sources.”
The MEC also issued a stern warning, her department will continue to enforce the effective and efficient administration of fiscal resources including oversight on revenue and expenditure of infrastructure budgets to ensure service delivery.
“The Sustainable Fiscal Resources Management business unit is allocated a budget of R170 million for this financial year to implement its strategic objectives,” she said.
