The month of May is that time of the year at which provincial government departments are gearing themselves up for the financial year ahead. First on the podium in the Provincial Legislature was MEC Boitumelo Moiloa for the Department of Social Development. On Tuesday, Moiloa presented her department’s budget speech for the 2023/24 financial year. Some of the priorities that the department had identified include job creation. For the 2023/24 financial year, the department had set a target of five hundred and twenty (520) work opportunities that will be created. Second on the priority list is services to children. "The Department of Social Development remained with other functions, which include child protection, psycho-social services, the child support grant, access to social services, parental support programmes, and partial care facilities that relate to after-school services, private hostels, and temporary respite care centres,” Moiloa stated. The total budget allocated to the DSD North West is R 1 713, 072 (One Billion, Seven Hundred and Thirteen Million, and Seventy-Two Thousand).
Second to be on the platform was MEC Madoda Sambatha, for the Provincial Health Department, who announced that his department was embarking on a growing Provincial Measles Vaccination Campaign, which currently stands at 216 confirmed cases from a total of 960 cases nationwide. Sambatha also alluded that his department had identified another priority for the public to have uninterrupted access to medical health care. The MEC announced that, among others, as a point of departure, his department resolved to increase beds at Mahikeng Provincial Hospital (Bophelong), with an extra 100 beds in their effort to improve the hospital's capacity for it to be able to admit more patients. The total allocated budget for the NWDoH is R15 219 592 (Fifteen billion, two hundred and nineteen million, five hundred and ninety-two thousand).
Next in line to present her department's budget speech was MEC Keneetswe Mosenogi for the Department of Arts, Culture, Sport and Recreation. Mosenogi outlined that this budget vote will catalyse fostering social cohesion and nation-building and deliver programmes that contribute towards job creation to address the challenges of unemployment and poverty. Second, on the ACSR Department’s list of priorities for the 2023/24 financial year, the department set a target of five hundred and twenty (520) work opportunities to be created, which will be achieved. R4.1m has been allocated for this to be realised, of which R1.9m is for the Expanded Public Works Programme Grant and R2.1m has been reprioritised from the equitable share support for this initiative. The total allocated budget for the ACSR department amounts to Seven Hundred, Forty-Two Million and Sixty-Five Thousand- R742 065 000.
The Provincial Education Department, under the stewardship of MEC Viola Motsumi, outlined her department’s priorities and that agriculture is one of the economic pillars of this province.” Therefore, the value of establishing more Agric-focus schools in the province cannot be over-emphasised,” stated Motsumi. Another priority mentioned by the MEC was that for 2023/24, a more significant portion of goods and services allocation would be spent on procuring Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM), specifically textbooks and stationery for learners. The budget for LTSM in the current financial has increased by 4,5 percent from R 643 million to R 672 million for the financial years 2022/23 and 2023/24, respectively. “To further strengthen the efforts to realise our matric results target, our implementation of the Learner Attainment Improvement Plan (LAIP) will, among others, give greater emphasis to Home Language performance, ensure greater participation in gateway subjects, engage more learners with potential to improve the distinction and bachelor performance, prioritise progressed learners for customised support and measure performance quarterly to gauge the effectiveness of our strategies and inform further interventions,” stated Motsumi
The total budget allocated for the provincial education department was projected to be around R 20 575 525 000 (Twenty Billion, Five Hundred and Seventy-Five Million, Five Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand Rand).
*ED’s note: Kindly be informed that in our next edition, we will bring you detailed and analytical budget speech votes presentations*
