KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli has assured the province’s residents that current “unsustainable” spending trends pushing some KZN provincial departments to the brink of collapse will soon be a thing of the past. The provincial departments, which at the start of the financial year owed service providers a staggering R150 billion, every year end up running out of funds to procure essential goods and services. “We will not continue on a path of unsustainable spending.
We are introducing structured institutional capacity building programmes to ensure that every official, at every level, is equipped with the skills, tools and the systems required to implement the reforms. “Where there is no compliance, there has to be consequence management,” he said. The plan, which, amongst others, will ensure that departments’ capacity to generate revenue is strengthened, is projected to generate R1.5 billion savings annually.
Prioritising frontline departments, the PERP required departments to submit concrete plans on how they would implement the broader provincial government plan. Ntuli said the provincial government had to act as the financial situation was threatening to put the lives of the province’s residents at risk. “In health, the constrained budget resulted in delays in the procurement of critical medical supplies and the intensification of the shortage of staff,” he said. Finance MEC Francois Rodgers, who attributed the provincial government’s financial challenges to, amongst others, the budget cuts implemented by the National Treasury over the years, said his department would ensure that the PFRP was implemented in a responsible manner.
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