Cape Town - With South Africa’s collective gaze focused on Parliament, several groups used the attention to demand that government alter its spending priorities ahead of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement..
Equal Education (EE) activists gathered in front of the parliamentary precinct, hoping to grab the attention of passing traffic and perhaps those in power, demanding that government reverse “drastic” cuts to the education budget.
Across the road, in front of the St Mary’s Cathedral, The Black Sash demanded that government prioritise human rights in its budget policy framework.
EE said government’s budget cuts to the Department of Basic Education had exacerbated the dire situation impoverished schools find themselves in.
EE deputy head organiser Chwayita Wenana said the cuts continued a trend of de-prioritising basic education and the consequences were that the rights of pupils to basic education would be compromised.
Wenana claimed that the National Treasury continued to fail to prioritise basic education and had demonstrated that through the supplementary budget tabled in June, by taking R2.1 billion from the overall budget of the department.
She said at least R1.7bn had been cut from school infrastructure grants alone, and a further R4.4bn had been reallocated from within those grants to cover Covid-19 expenses.
“These cuts have resulted in 1938 school construction projects - funded through the Education Infrastructure Grant - being stopped or delayed,” Wenana said.
She said schools had been forced to use their already overstretched budgets to provide Covid-19 necessities, claiming that they were unable to maintain infrastructure and unable to buy school furniture, or even textbooks.
Black Sash was demanding permanent social assistance for those aged 18 to 59, and a R250 increase of the Covid-19 grant.
Those picketing in front of St Mary’s Cathedral demanded that government implement a universal basic income which should also include refugees, permanent residents, asylum seekers and migrant workers with special permits.
Black Sash national advocacy manager Hoodah Abrahams-Fayer, said the government’s failure to extend and increase the R500 Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Caregiver Grant meant that women and children would shoulder the brunt of the pandemic and its national economic consequences.
Cape Argus