Johannesburg - Education and health are again the two biggest spending items in Gauteng's 2017/18 budget announced by finance member of the executive committee (MEC) Barbara Creecy at the Gauteng legislature on Tuesday morning.
Creecy said that education will receive R40.8 billion, while health receives R40.2bn.
Some R3.37bn of the education budget will be directly transferred to public ordinary schools; R2.3bn for the special school sector which caters for learners with intellectual and other disabilities; R12.6 million for new conditional grants for severely disabled learners and R1.07bn to provide 1.15 million learners with a hot meal at school every day, Creecy said.
She added that a further R3.39bn will be spent on learner transport, as well as supporting the continued rollout of an e-learning strategy, the procurement of school supplies and learner material, payment of municipal bills, teacher development and support initiatives and the improvement of grade 12 performances to increase the province's bachelor pass rates.
The MEC acknowledged that Gauteng's public health system needed improvement, saying "our public health system is a major priority this year".
“In this regard, the province said it will spend: R9bn to enhance service delivery outcomes in district hospitals, community health clinics and community based centres; R7.3bn for the central hospitals; R3.7bn to support the treatment and prevention of HIV/Aids and tuberculosis; R990m for emergency medical services; new money for medicine and medical supplies and the appointment of key personnel in the department," she said,
Creecy substantially raised the allocated funds to support patients with mental health conditions in the medium-term (the next three years), from just over R700m in the last medium-term to R893.8m currently. She asserted that the provincial treasury is "committed to supporting the health department in implementing the recommendations of the Health ombudsman’s report.
“When the alternative dispute resolution process is complete, we will appropriate any necessary resources for the families of the victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy from the provincial revenue fund."
This relates to the scandal where over 100 mental health patients were moved from Life Esidimeni to NGOs which were found to be unlicensed by ombudsman, Dr Malegapuru Makgoba.
The combined budgets for health and education equate to roughly 75% of Gauteng's total budget of R108bn.
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